Ten High
by Stencil Your Heart
Summary: Less than two months ago, Anna was on the fast track to becoming the youngest department head Atlanta Medical Center had ever seen. When her hospital falls quickly after the global outbreak, she has to learn what it really takes to survive in a world where the dead aren't the only thing to fear. DarylOC, the slowest of burns.
1. Rabid

**Disclaimer:** Nothing recognizable is mine.

* * *

Anna Mason was exhausted. A thin sheen of sweat caused her once-white undershirt to cling uncomfortably to her back. The bottoms of her shoes were sticky with blood and bodily fluids – none of which belonged to her – that caused them to make a sickening _squelch_ sound against the old linoleum flooring. As she sank down into the hard plastic breakroom chair, she let her head fall into her hand. She was used to working long hours with few breaks but today was another story entirely. She was rounding out hour fourteen of what was supposed to have been a twelve-hour shift and this was the first chance she had gotten to sit down since she walked in the door the night before. Her back ached, her stomach was grumbling relentlessly and she was really, really regretting the moment she agreed to switch shifts with Higgins.

The vibration of her phone from inside the pocket of her scrubs caused Anna to lift her head again. _You coming home?_ The text read, followed immediately by, _Or do you have a hot date?_ The corner of her mouth quirked upward as she scoffed lightly. Anna couldn't even remember the last time she had gone on a date. She typed out a quick reply to her sister letting her know she was working late (again) before folding her arms on the table and resting her chin on top of them. Her eyes fluttered closed.

"Mason?"

Anna swallowed a groan as her eyes shot open and she turned toward the source of the voice. The microwave beeped behind her, signaling that the coffee she had tried to drink eight hours ago was warm once again. "Yes?"

"You alright?"

"Tired," Anna admitted as her companion, one of the other physicians on her unit, made his way over to the table and took a seat across from her. With his messy hair and generally disheveled appearance, he looked to be in the same rough shape as she was.

"Me too," he admitted. "I've never seen this many rabies cases in one town before."

"I've never seen rabies _act_ like this before," she countered. "The onset is so sudden in all of these cases; it's like a super strain or something."

It was true. Of all the patients admitted to Atlanta Medical Center's emergency department in the past twenty-four hours, eighty-three were victims of animal attacks who were showing extremely rapid onset of rabies symptoms. The hospital staff were administering HRIG and vaccinations so quickly that it made Anna's head swim. Baker reached behind him to take Anna's coffee out of the microwave, handing it to her with a small smile. She took it gratefully.

"You get the pathology report back on that 38-year old yet?"

Anna shook her head. "Pathology's not really putting a rush on it. As soon as I called for it, Miller told me I was wasting her time. I just feel like it has to be something else, you know?"

"Yeah, but if it's not rabies then what is it?"

As she opened her mouth to tell him that she had no idea, a shrill cry from down the hallway cut her off. She and Baker leapt to their feet and dashed out the door to find the source of the screaming. A small crowd had gathered around the doorway of room 241, each person wearing expressions of shock and horror. Anna and Baker pushed their way inside and found David Jones, a patient Anna had begun the rabies treatment protocol on earlier that day, violently thrashing in his hospital bed.

As she surveyed the scene, Anna's hand shot to her mouth to cover her gasp. The patient's skin was tinged faintly blue, his teeth gnashing wildly at the air. A group of nurses and CNAs had managed to wrangle his flailing arms into the restraints, but his fingernails still scratched desperately at the bed sheets. To Anna though, the most disturbing thing was the patient's eyes. Once a warm shade of brown, they were now glazed over and watery, cloudy and blue as if he had suddenly developed severe cataracts. Two residents were in the corner comforting the patient's shaking wife as she sobbed herself into hysterics.

"He bit me!" She wailed, clutching her injured wrist to her chest. "What's wrong with him? Please Doctor, do something!"

Anna gave her head a quick shake to ground herself before making her way over to the med cart one of the nurses had brought in. She fished a syringe and a vial out of one of the drawers, drawing the necessary amount into the syringe and inserting it into the patient's IV line.

"Pushing 2mg Lorazepam."

In her peripheral vision, she could see two nurses fighting to hold the patient's head steady as Baker flashed a light into the cloudy blue orbs that were his eyes. "Pupils unresponsive."

"Why isn't he calming down?" One of the residents shouted.

Anna met Baker's eyes and found that neither of them had an answer. Before she had a chance to respond, she felt a rough hand on her shoulder shove her out of the way. She found herself being pushed backward into the crowd of people as several police officers entered the room.

"Excuse me!" She shouted over the chaos, catching the attention of the officer nearest her. "You can't just barge in here and commandeer my patient. You have no right to-"

"With all due respect, Doctor," the officer cut across her as he backed her ever further out of the room. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Anna opened her mouth to protest but was met with a final harsh shove backward. The last thing she saw was an officer inspecting the wife's bite wound before the door was slammed shut in her face.

"Hey!" She shouted, slamming her palms angrily against the door. She tried the knob to no avail.

Behind her, the anxious chatter of the crowd that had formed grew ever louder. Her chest heaved as she backed away from the door, distraught and angry at what could be going on behind it. As she turned away she found herself face-to-face with Baker, whose expression matched hers.

"Anna," he began, his voice doing nothing to hide his unease. "What the hell is happening?"

* * *

Anna never did get her pathology report back, but she didn't need it to know that whatever was infecting these people, it definitely was _not_ rabies. Less than four hours after Anna failed to sedate David Jones, every radio and television in the vicinity was showing news reports of infected citizens attacking people, always with their teeth violently gnashing as they tried to sink them into the nearest source of flesh they could find. Anna was at a complete loss. She had seen patients do some frightening things while under the influence, but she had never witnessed anything like this.

Atlanta P.D. had fully infiltrated Atlanta Medical Center by dusk. While a handful of officers made their way to the morgue – where Anna had heard disturbing rumors of reanimated corpses, as if that could possibly be true – the remainder began quarantining any and all patients with anything remotely resembling a bite wound or infection. No one would tell Anna where they were being taken and after a while she stopped bothering to ask.

The following day, the news reports stopped. They were replaced by emergency broadcast notifications urging citizens to stay indoors and avoid contact with any person they suspected could be infected. The military moved into the hospital two hours later, immediately declaring the trauma center to be closed. Family members were not permitted to visit their loved ones who had been admitted and phones rang off the hook. Every single patient under Anna's care was to be quarantined, which meant that Anna and the rest of the emergency department staff were temporarily reassigned to other units. Anna, along with Baker and a handful of nurses and CNAs, were sent to the fourth floor ICU.

"Anna," Baker whispered to her as they filed down the hallway, led by an armed Lieutenant. "Have you heard from anyone on the outside?"

Anna shook her head. "No. I'm surprised Alex hasn't burned the whole building down by now trying to find me."

It was true. Anna's ex-military sister had always been on the protective side, even more so after the loss of their parents several years ago. Whatever was going on outside the hospital walls, Anna knew that Alex would be paying close attention. She had been checking her phone as often as she could, hoping to hear something from her sister, but each time she found nothing. It was only recently that she realized she had completely lost her cell signal.

"What about you? Have you heard anything?"

"No," Baker frowned and Anna could see the concern in his eyes. "I called my wife and father-in-law twelve times before the lines went down and no one answered. I just hope they're okay."

Anna wanted to say something to comfort him but found herself coming up short. They were effectively cut off from whatever was going on outside the hospital walls, their only source of information being the armed soldiers who refused to tell them anything. Occasionally someone was able to sneak a glance out of one of the windows in a patient's room, but for the most part the soldiers kept the curtains tightly drawn. For a time, the days and nights dragged on in organized chaos. The staff slept in shifts, never more than an hour or two at a time. Tensions were high and the anxiety was palpable, but everyone seemed to content themselves with the knowledge that they were in the safest place they could possibly be.

By the fifth day, there was talk of a safe zone being set up somewhere inside the city. The next few days saw patients being evacuated with painful slowness, one floor at a time. Anna spent her time preparing her patients for evacuation, making sure they were in the best possible condition for transport and had all their necessary medications and dressings ready to go. She sat with some of her elderly patients, holding their hands and listening to stories of years long past to distract both of them from what was going on in the present.

When Anna woke from her brief sleep on the eighth day, any remnant of organization that was left had dissipated. The entire hospital, or at least the fourth floor ICU, had devolved into total chaos. The shouting was what woke her and when she opened the door that led to the hallway, she found broken glass, debris and medications scattered across the floor. The lights overhead flickered on and off, adding to the chaos. She saw patients and staff alike running through the corridors, some nursing wounds while others just seemed frantic. Anna tried to stop a few people to ask them what was going on but everyone refused to acknowledge her. Orders were being barked as people screamed. As she rounded a corner, Anna finally saw a familiar face.

"Baker!" She cried, her eyes immediately flying to an angry cut on his temple. "What's happening? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he replied, grabbing her by the arm and turning her back the way she had come. "We need to get out of here."

"How? Aren't they guarding all of the doors?"

"We have to at least try," his voice was becoming more frantic and Anna could feel her heartbeat rising in response. "While you were asleep a bunch of people broke through the barricades on the ground floor, trying to get to their loved ones or find shelter or- I don't know, it doesn't matter. But a bunch of the infected got in and now the whole building's compromised."

He yanked her into a darkened hallway as a trio of soldiers passed by, guns at the ready. Anna's heart pounded against her sternum so loudly she was sure they would hear it. Baker turned to her again.

"They're shooting anyone they think might be infected," he whispered. "Or maybe just anyone they see. I can't really tell anymore. Either way, it's safer to just stay clear of them."

When he felt it was safe, Baker peeked his head around the corner and gestured to Anna that the coast was clear. She followed him down the long series of hallways until they ended up at the far end of the unit, near the employee elevators. Anna swiped her badge to get the doors to open but Baker swatted her hand away.

"It's too risky," he chastised. "The power keeps going on and off. The last thing you want is to get stuck in an elevator, especially with one of them."

Anna nodded that she understood but in truth, her head was swimming. How could the military be shooting unarmed civilians? Why would they want to harm the hospital staff? What happened to evacuating patients to the safe zone? She had a thousand questions that needed answers and no time with which to ask them. Baker was already throwing open the door to the stairwell and from that point forward, time seemed to pass in slow motion.

Looking back on it later, Anna could never be entirely sure which hit her first: the sound of the shot or the splattering of blood across her face. Her stomach and heart went clattering to the floor at the same time Baker's body did, all three of them landing in a crumpled heap at her feet. She opened her mouth to let out a cry but was met with silence instead, though it was possible she just couldn't hear it over the ringing in her ears.

Anna could name every single piece of the brain involved in the fight-or-flight response. She could spend hours explaining why the body diverts blood flow from some of its parts to send to the muscles instead, or how the body knows to get a jump start on speeding up the clotting process in case of an injury. But in that moment, something somewhere in her sympathetic nervous system failed. She couldn't run and she couldn't fight; she could do nothing but stand rooted to the spot, the blood in her veins turning to ice and keeping her frozen in place.

She saw one of the soldiers standing in front of her, his gun raised in her direction. Her eyes snapped shut reflexively and she stumbled backward as she heard the shot ring out, sending herself sprawling across the dirty linoleum – but she felt nothing. Vaguely she wondered if she had imagined the entire thing but she was too afraid to open her eyes and find out.

"Fucking finally," a voice grumbled and when Anna's eyes shot open, she saw someone stepping over the bodies of Baker and the soldier and sliding a pistol back into the holster on their hip. "I've been looking for you for hours."

"Alex?" Anna asked, incredulous. "How did you get in here?"

"Magic," her sister replied sarcastically as she extended a hand to help Anna to her feet. "When that crowd broke through the barricade at the front door late last night, I slipped in with them. They had the whole ED blocked off so I've been working my way up, sweeping all the floors looking for you."

Anna blinked to try and clear her head as Alex flipped the dead soldier over and relieved him of his rifle. Her attention turned to Baker's lifeless form and she felt her stomach turn circles inside her body. She had seen countless gunshot victims during her time in the medical field but there was no class or clinical or residency in the world that could have prepared her for seeing her co-worker and friend murdered right in front of her.

"Come on," Alex said, forcing Anna's gaze away. "We need to get out of here. Take this."

She pulled a gun from the waistband of her pants and shoved it into Anna's hands, already making her way back down the stairwell before Anna could even protest.

"Alex!" She whisper-shouted in the darkness as she followed after her, worried that more soldiers might hear them. "You know I don't-"

"Yeah well, you've gotta learn sometime, right?" Alex countered, taking the steps two at a time. "The little lever on the side is the safety; make sure it's pushed all the way down when you're ready to use it. Then just point and squeeze, and try not to hit me."

Under normal circumstances, Anna would have rolled her eyes. "I don't really think that constitutes a less-"

Alex's sudden halt silenced Anna in a heartbeat. She motioned for Anna to move closer to the wall as she did the same, her rifle poised and ready. They were halfway between the second and third floors, Anna realized, but below them she could hear heavy footsteps and voices.

"Through here," came a man's order. "I think I saw one of them head this way."

Just a few feet below them, Anna could see two of the soldiers heading through the doorway to the second floor. She held her breath as she waited and, once they were satisfied that the soldiers were gone, the sisters continued on their way. In the dim lighting Anna could see blood splattered across her sister's clothing, although she had a distinct feeling that it didn't belong to her.

"Where are we going?" Anna asked in a low voice. "The safe zone?"

"Safe zone?" Alex repeated as they made their way down the final flight of steps. "What safe zone?"

They paused at the heavy metal door that led to the outside. Vaguely Anna knew that they were at the back of the building but she couldn't say exactly where. "There's a safe zone somewhere in the city. They've been evacuating patients there for the past few days."

Alex swore under her breath. Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out two surgical masks.

"Look, Anna," she began, her voice uneasy. "I don't know what exactly they told you but there is no safe zone. And the patients, they-" she shook her head. "Just put this on. The smell is awful."

Anna wanted to ask what smell she was talking about but her sister was already shoving the mask into her hands. Once it was secure, Alex threw open the door to the outside. Anna practically recoiled at how bright the sunlight was after being inside for so long. It pierced through her eyelids like a hot knife but still felt welcome on her skin. She blinked a few times to clear the dots from her vision but once she finally focused, she wished she hadn't.

She recognized the lot before her as a loading and unloading area for deliveries and biohazardous waste, but there were no trailers or delivery vehicles in sight. For the entire length of the lot, all Anna could see were piles upon piles of bodies. There had to have been hundreds, thousands of them piled up like garbage. There were tarps and sheets haphazardly thrown over some of the bodies but they did little to conceal the effects of decay. As her eyes scanned the rows and rows of corpses in front of her, past the clouds of flies that were buzzing about incessantly, she could see maggots wiggling inside of open wounds. Some of the corpses bore the bite wounds Anna had grown so accustomed to seeing lately, but every single one that Anna could count had one thing in common – a gunshot wound to the head. She had to swallow hard to hold back a sob and force down the bile that was rising in her throat. Was this what they meant when they said they were evacuating her patients? Were they really just taking them out here to be murdered?

"Come on," Alex said as she gave her a tug, her voice muffled through the mask that did little to ward off the stench of death. "Stay close to me."

Anna nodded, feeling dumbstruck as she made her way out into the horror of the scene in front of her. For over a week she had been entirely in the dark about what was happening outside of the hospital walls but as she and her sister stepped out into the familiar Atlanta streets, she knew that was all about to change.

* * *

Thirty-four days later, Anna would have given almost anything to be back at that hospital with her sister. Or at least, she thought it was thirty-four days.

Late summer Georgia heat clung to her like a second skin, her once-white t-shirt so coated with dirt and dried sweat that it looked more brown and grey than anything. Her blistered feet ached from inside her worn shoes, the soles hanging on by a few bare threads and the sheer will of a god she wasn't even sure she believed in anymore. The palms of her hands were so calloused and torn she could barely even feel the handle of the little hatchet she held. Her body ached all over, her head pounding so hard that she was legitimately concerned her skull might burst. Twinges of nausea colored her uneasy stomach and she silently pleaded that she wouldn't be sick again. And god, her mouth was dry.

Two days after they left Atlanta Medical Center, Anna and her sister had holed up fairly comfortably on the outskirts of the city. Alex had managed to gather up a decent supply of weapons and medical necessities, something Anna was grateful for as she knew she was little help in the scavenging department. They took up shelter in an abandoned mom and pop shop that had already been picked clean by the time they arrived, but had two fairly secure exits and it was off the main path. For a few hours Anna even let herself believe that things might be okay but whatever hope she had left burned up that night along with her city, awash in the glow of napalm.

Alex led them further from Atlanta the following morning with Alabama on her mind. They planned to follow I-85 across the border to the I-65 split, letting it carry them down toward the coast with the option to stop off in some smaller towns like Georgiana and Andalusia along the way. Alex figured having the water at their backs would give them a little more security and they could always hop around to Miramar Beach to the east or Pascagoula to the west if Alabama didn't suit them. "Besides," Alex had reasoned, "No one _wants_ to go to Alabama." Anna almost smiled as she remembered the comment but it was quickly replaced by a bitter thought about how quickly those plans were thrown to the wind. They'd hardly made it past East Point before they ran into a small group of three men, one of whom was nursing napalm burns on his leg. Alex tried to convince her sister to let them be but Anna was insistent, something she would come to regret for the rest of her presumably short life.

The men led Alex and Anna back to their campsite under the guise of expressing their thanks in the form of food, something Anna was naïve to insist they accept. The two-hour detour turned into two weeks, which was one number Anna was certain she had right. She spent every second of that time cursing herself for being such an idiot, for letting her need to help override her sister's sense of survival, and for getting them trapped in a situation where they were outnumbered, overpowered, and virtually helpless. Her own naivety was what got them stuck and, she noted bitterly, it was what ended up costing Anna her sister.

After that, the hours ran into days that ran into weeks and she'd lost track of the date and time and mostly everything else after she lost Alex and found herself well and truly on her own. Truthfully, she was surprised she'd even made it that long. The first few days were the hardest, both physically and mentally, but after a while she finally made it far enough away from the city that the dead ones had started becoming fewer and further between. Most days she only ran into a handful, often less, and she found it relatively easy to avoid them if she stayed quiet and was careful not to draw attention to herself. At this point, it wasn't so much the dead she was worried about anyway.

She frowned at the thought, her fingers twitching slightly over the handle of the pistol at her hip. There were three bullets in the magazine that held fifteen and one in the chamber - she knew that much, at least. Well that, how to turn the safety off, and – in her sister's words – how to make it go _bang_. The corners of her mouth fell deeper into a frown as she thought about all the times she had turned down offers from Alex and their dad to go hunting, opting instead to stay inside and study or watch tv or pour over the latest copy of Teen Beat. She would have given anything to go back and do it over, to hone some skills that would actually help her survive the hellhole the world had become, but there was no point in wishing for anything anymore. She supposed there was a large part of her that always assumed Alex would be there to protect her, the last woman standing at the end of the whole world. There was a twinge deep in her chest and she knew she had to push the thought away. She didn't have enough strength left in her to cry, not now.

One foot made its way in front of the other as she shuffled through the overgrown grass of whatever Georgia forest she'd found herself in. She was thankful for the trees at least, for whatever bit of cover they provided. Her sunburn from the week prior - or at least, she thought it was a week - had finally healed and peeled to the point that she wasn't in pain anymore, and that was an extra nuisance she really didn't want to have to endure again. A part of her did miss the direct sunlight though, if for nothing else than giving her a vague inclination about the direction she was heading in. Not that it really mattered if she was going north or west or to the goddamn ocean, really. Knowing how to get to where she was going only mattered if she actually had a destination in mind other than "far away."

She heaved a heavy sigh as she paused to lean against the thick trunk of a nearby tree to catch her breath. She slid the pack off of her back to give her shoulders some much needed relief. As she wiped the sweat from her forehead, she fought the urge to pull her canteen from the pack, knowing full well that it was as bone dry as it had been the last six times she had given into the urge to check it. The bark of the tree was rough beneath her head, the jagged edges catching on strands of her hair and yanking them free from the tie holding the mess off of her neck. She could feel it scratch down her back as she let herself slide to the ground, her legs suddenly losing whatever ability they had left to support her weight. The lids of her eyes felt heavier than they ever had and she cursed herself for stopping in the first place. Yes, she was exhausted; she hadn't slept for more than an hour or so at a time since- well, since she still thought she was dealing with the world's most severe rabies outbreak.

She felt half-drunk as she struggled to keep herself awake, her eye lids suddenly feeling as though there were ten-pound weights dragging them downward. Even her mind felt hazy, the combination of heat and exhaustion and lack of food and water causing every part of her body to work on overdrive. She couldn't sleep, she told herself. Not here. Not now. But although she called on every last bit of willpower she had to keep them open, she had no strength left to fight as her eyelids fluttered closed and left the world around her cloaked in a curtain of solid black.

How long Anna stayed that way, she couldn't even begin to say. When she woke it was with a violent start and a gasp, her mind immediately convinced that she was going to look to her feet and find a member of the dead gnawing on one of her limbs. Her heart beat so viciously inside of her body that she was worried it would break right out of its cage. Hastily she jumped to her feet, hatchet in hand as she spun in a quick 360 to survey her surroundings. She regretted it immediately. She could hardly even tell the leaves from the ground from the tree trunks as her vision swam and her head whirled. She blinked rapidly to try and clear the haze but to no avail. The imbalance in her equilibrium caused her to stumble backward and her nausea to return tenfold. She let out a groan as her stomach flipped over and over, her head seeming to match it each time. She had to put her hands on her knees to try and steady herself, though she was worried the ground was going to come rushing up to meet her.

When Anna heard the first twig snap in two, her heart might as well have done the same. Her spine straightened in an instant and she felt herself go rigid, the all too familiar fear creeping once again up the back of her neck. For a moment she only listened, her vision clearing but still too hazy for her to properly see. Silently she prayed for it to just be an animal, or a figment of her imagination, or even one of the infected – anything other than what she feared most. She held her breath as she waited, willing herself to stay calm. She couldn't let herself fall into the hands of another group of people like the one she'd been stuck with before. She couldn't go through that again. She wouldn't.

A lifetime seemed to pass in the course of a few seconds, but then she heard it. The sound was far enough in the distance to still be fairly faint but there was no mistaking the man's voice.

"I swear I saw it! Just yesterday, a deer right over there."

"Man, you didn't see nothing. Those two hunters haven't seen a deer the whole time they've been here. You trying to tell me you know more about hunting than those guys?"

If Anna thought her heart was pounding before, it was nothing compared to the bass beat it was currently hammering into her breastbone. She could feel the panic all the way down in her fingertips, a frantic tingling that left her devoid of nearly all sense of reason. She tried to take a deep breath to calm herself but it was hardly a drop in the sea of distress washing over her. She snapped her head side to side again as she tried to find a place to hide, but there was nothing. Anna let her head fall back in frustration and it hit the bark of the tree with an angry thud.

Realization dawned on her and she stepped away from the tree trunk and turned to face it, her gaze drawing upward to take in the structure. She reached down to grab her pack from the ground and swung it onto her back. She stepped closer to the tree and stood on her tiptoes, reaching her hand up as high as she could toward the lowest hanging branch but she couldn't quite reach it. Anna took in a deep breath as she closed her eyes again, trying to muster whatever bit of strength she had left. On the exhale she launched herself upward with as much force as she could, her arms just barely able to lock around the branch. For a moment she hung there unsure of what to do next. Even without the burden of exhaustion, Anna knew she lacked the upper body strength necessary to pull herself up; however, she was able to use the trunk as leverage, swinging her legs up and pushing against it with her feet to give herself the boost she needed to make it onto the branch.

Anna could hear the voices drawing closer and knew she was still too low to the ground. Her vision turned blurry once again as she hoisted herself up onto a higher branch, satisfied that she had put enough distance between herself and whoever might cross her path. She dropped her head so her forehead rested against the tree limb as she waited, trying desperately to ward off the dizziness once again. She could hear the men more clearly now and made the mistake of opening her eyes. The ground beneath her suddenly looked much closer than the fifteen or so feet away it really was and it seemed to move closer and then away again in rapid succession. She could feel bile rising in the back of her throat once more and forced herself to swallow it back down.

 _Please_ , she silently begged the men as she saw their figures come into view. _Just keep walking._

"I'm just saying," one of them remarked. "It'd be nice to have some meat that's not squirrel, you know?"

It was the last thing Anna heard before she felt herself slip sideways off of the branch and the world around her careened into black once again.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you all so much for reading! This little story has been building in my mind for several years now and I think it's finally time to let it loose. I hope you all love it as much as I do!

Very special thanks to my dear friend and beta-adjacent **BouncingKappa** , without whom all of my Nicholas Sparks-esque ideas would remain unchecked, and to **BravoZver** , who is the Teddy to my Bob Belcher and whose incredibly badass OC inspired Anna's sister Alex.


	2. High Slung

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing you recognize.

* * *

Anna woke up feeling like she had been hit by a freight train. That, or she was coming off of the most intense night of drinking of her entire life. Her head pounded with the force of a bass drum and if she didn't know better, she would have thought her skull was going to crack in two. She let out a groan as she tried to roll over but was met with a searing pain in her left shoulder. She could feel her left arm secured in front of her in some kind of makeshift sling, though she noted that it was too loose to be of any benefit. What in the world happened to her? As the memories came flooding back to her in a rush, her eyes shot open and she was met with two bright blue orbs staring back at her. For a moment she sat frozen, locked into the gaze. She watched the eyes widen in realization, followed by a shout.

"Mom!" Anna winced as the sound hit her ears, worsening the pounding between them. "Mom, she's awake!"

Anna grimaced again as she used her right arm to push herself into a sitting position and tried to take in her surroundings. She saw a woman, presumably the mother of the boy who was shouting, come rushing over to them from where she had been standing at a sink on the far side of the room.

"Good job, honey," the woman responded in a gentle but urgent tone. "Can you go get Shane for me?"

The boy nodded and Anna watched him run toward the two front seats and out the door as though he had just been given the most important mission in the entire world. She blinked as she took in the table across from her with two booth-style seats. If she faced them she could see a small hallway that led to a bathroom and bedroom on her left and a big windshield on her right. A series of framed photographs decorated the walls along with a large wooden sign above the sink that proudly declared, "I'd rather be fishing." Her brow furrowed in confusion. She was in someone's RV?

"Hey," the woman said in a low voice as she hurried over to sit on the edge of the makeshift bed Anna was sitting on. She recoiled instinctively and the woman held up her hands in an attempt to calm her down. "Wait, please, I'm not going to hurt you."

She picked up an old camper mug from the table across from them and held it out to Anna. When the latter eyed it warily, the woman continued, "It's only water. Please, you've been out for a while; you need to drink."

Anna could feel herself becoming hyper-aware of the burning in her throat at the woman's words. She took the mug wordlessly and sipped from it, relishing the feel of the liquid as it soothed her sore throat.

"My name is Lori Grimes," the woman continued. "That was my son Carl. What's your name?"

Anna regarded her over the rim of the mug. The woman before her was tall and slender, her long brown hair the same color as her son's. She was waiting expectantly for Anna's answer, two large brown eyes fixed on Anna's own. She was very pretty, Anna noted, even at the end of the world. There was a kindness in her eyes that wasn't lost on the doctor, though it did little to quell the dull ache of fear in her chest.

"Anna," she replied finally, her voice sounding foreign from disuse.

Lori nodded at her, seemingly grateful that she had responded at all. "Do you remember what happened?"

"I- yeah, sort of. I guess I fell out of a tree. Where am I? How long was I out?"

"You're in an RV at our camp about twenty miles west of Atlanta. Two of our men found you out in the woods and brought you here three days ago."

"Three days?" Anna blanched. She could feel her heartbeat quickening at Lori's words, the old familiar fear boiling the blood in her veins. A cold sweat beaded on the back of her neck in spite of the perpetually warm Georgia air. "This is a camp? How many of you are there?"

"Quite a few," Lori replied, a confused look passing across her features at Anna's visibly growing anxiety. "We set up out here about three weeks ago. Most of us met up on I-85 trying to get into the city to the refugee center."

Anna had to fight back a scoff at the mention of the supposed refugee center in Atlanta. All it did now was serve as a reminder of where she had come from, what she had left behind, and everything she had already lost since the virus outbreak hardly more than a month ago.

"Okay," she said after a long pause, ignoring the ache in her shoulder as she stood. Lori matched her movement. "Well, I appreciate you guys not, you know, leaving me to die in the woods but I really think I should be on my way. If you could just hand me my pack I-"

"No, please!" Lori cried, reaching a hand out toward the other woman and causing her to flinch away from the contact. She steadied her voice and tried again. "Please, you aren't fully healed yet. You need to rest. We have food and there's a lake nearby and-"

The loud _bang_ of the RV door as it was thrown open cut her off. Anna nearly jumped out of her skin as a man in a sheriff's uniform entered, his dark eyes finding her immediately. Though he stood several feet from her, Anna could tell that he would easily tower over her smaller frame and she felt herself shrink beneath his gaze.

"Shane," Lori began from her place beside him. She kept her voice low and even, as though she was afraid she would startle Anna and cause her to run off like a frightened rabbit – which, to be fair, was a logical assumption. "This is Anna."

"Anna," he repeated, his voice a deep southern drawl. She had the vague inclination that he was using the same tone as he did when he had to talk people off of ledges before the world ended. "Well it's nice to meet you, Anna. I'm Officer Shane Walsh from the King County Sheriff's Department."

Anna recognized King County as a fairly rural area on the border of Fulton County, of which Atlanta sat at the center. She couldn't remember if she had ever been there before but she supposed it didn't really matter. Neither of them said anything for a moment as they regarded each other, him waiting for a response and her waiting to see if she was going to be able to leave, as he was effectively blocking her exit whether he intended to or not. When the tense silence was finally broken, it was by Lori.

"I was just telling Anna about how Glenn and T-Dog brought her back here."

"Oh," Shane perked up at the mention of what happened to her, seeming to stand up a bit straighter as he continued. "Yeah, you took a hell of a tumble there. It's a good thing those two broke your fall or you probably would've ended up with a lot worse than a fractured shoulder blade. They brought you back here and I made you that sling, cleaned those scrapes up for you; you've been out ever since."

Anna blinked at him for a moment before turning her gaze down to the arm in question. Lifting her good arm, she slid her fingers underneath the discolored collar of her shirt, feeling around on her back to see if she felt any flattening, but there was nothing. Her fingers moved toward her shoulder and she could feel the inflammation immediately, her skin warm to the touch from more than just the Georgia heat. She could tell that it was swollen and likely bruised, much like the rest of her probably was as well. She took a deep breath and looked back up at Shane, her fingers moving instead to slide the makeshift sling over her head and off of her arm.

"You made this?"

"He did," Lori answered for him, the prideful note in her voice not lost on Anna. "We don't have a nurse here or anything but Shane had a little bit of medical training at the sheriff's department."

"Well," Anna replied, biting the inside of her cheek as she tried to choose her words carefully. She was painfully aware of her tendency to come off as a bit, well, insufferably arrogant whenever she spoke on a topic she considered herself knowledgeable about. In the end, she failed miserably. "No offense Officer, but you didn't do a very good job. That sling was too loose to do any good and besides, my scapula's not fractured."

She spun around so Shane and Lori could see her back and used her good hand to gesture to her shoulder blade. "See how you can still see it sticking out there? If it was fractured that would almost always be flat. But see here," she turned back around to face them and pointed to her shoulder. "This is swollen to high heaven and you can feel how hot it is if you touch it. If you poked around up by my collar bone you'd be able to feel that my shoulder is partially dislocated."

Shane opened his mouth to respond but Anna cut him off. "Lori, can you help me?"

Lori blinked rapidly a few times as though she was snapping herself out of a trance before moving to Anna's side.

"I just need you to help support this arm and move it upward slowly. We need to keep the elbow pointing out like this and we want the hand to end up behind my head, like a baseball player winding up to throw a pitch."

For a moment Anna felt as though she was back in the hospital instructing wide-eyed pre-med students on how to tend to basic injuries. Lori did exactly as Anna explained and it wasn't long before she felt her shoulder slide back into place with a faint _pop_. Relief washed over her and she brought her hand up to massage her shoulder, rotating it slowly as she did.

"Thanks," she said to Lori before turning her attention back to Shane. "Nice to meet you, Officer. My name is Annalise Mason and I was just leaving."

Without bothering to ask for her pack again, Anna moved to push past Shane and head out the door. Mentally she kicked herself for possibly offending the very intimidating-looking man in the room while also probably coming off as a pompous know-it-all. There was no sense in dwelling on it though; she had no interest in sticking around for whatever their responses would be, although she found that she had little choice in the matter. Her fingers had just brushed the doorknob when she felt a calloused hand close around her wrist. Shane's grip was firm without being painful but it still sent shockwaves of unease up her spine. Once he'd spun her back around to face them, he let her go.

"Wait, before you go running off just hear us out, please."

Anna regarded him for a moment as she considered his request. He was standing near enough to the door that he could easily block her exit again, though she noted that he chose not to. She tried to gauge what set her so on edge; was it something about him specifically or just the fact that he was a strange man at the breakdown of civilization? Shane reminded her of a lot of the officers she had dealt with in the past for one reason or another. He exuded the aura of a confident guy, a man's man who maybe bordered on arrogant but she was clearly guilty of the same thing now and again.

He waited for Anna to protest and when she said nothing, he continued. "None of our people have any kind of medical experience; clearly mine ain't up to par. We could really use a doctor around camp. We got kids, Carl and a couple others, and some elderly too. It'd be real nice to have someone around here who knows what they're doing beyond patching up some scraped knees."

Anna warred with herself as she tried to weigh the pros and cons of her situation. She was hesitant to link up with any group of people after what happened the last time, but she also knew that it was only a matter of time before she couldn't make it on her own anymore. She had no hunting skills, no significant way to protect herself, no tracking experience or even concrete knowledge of how to figure out which way she was headed without a map in front of her. She had no clue how she had survived on her own for as long as she did, but she knew she wouldn't be that lucky – if you wanted to call it that – forever. But could she really run the risk of joining another group?

Anna let her eyes flicker from Shane to Lori and back again. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "It's not personal, I just… The last time I was with a group…"

She let her voice trail off and Lori regarded her softly, as a mother would despite their probable closeness in age. "You lost people," she finished for her and Anna didn't have the heart or will to correct her.

"Something like that, yeah."

"How about we show you around," Shane offered. "Let you get a feel for things. Supper should be ready soon anyway. You can stay in the RV tonight and if you still want to leave in the morning, we'll give you some supplies to help you out."

There was a part of Anna that still wanted to protest. What if these people were just like the others? As she diverted her gaze from Shane, she saw Lori looking at her with soft hopefulness. Anna swallowed hard to shove her nervousness back down as a faint whisper rose in the back of her mind – _What if they weren't?_

"Okay," she agreed, though hesitantly. "I- Yeah, okay."

The relief that washed over the two of them was palpable. Shane gave her an endearing crooked smile and Lori's face split into a wide grin, making her look even prettier than she did before. Anna suddenly became acutely aware of how absolutely feral she probably looked and she could feel the sharp twinge of self-consciousness burning beneath her skin. Seeming to read her mind, Lori took her hand and this time Anna didn't pull away.

"Why don't we go down to the lake first so you can wash up? Glenn brought us back a whole box of those travel-sized shampoo bottles the other day."

She didn't give Anna time to respond as Shane held the door open for them and the two women descended the stairs, Lori's hand still firmly wrapped around hers.

* * *

Anna was amazed at what a travel-sized bottle of Pantene and a bar of soap could do for her spirit. Lori had managed to gather up some clean clothes for her to wear and she found herself feeling almost human for the first time in what seemed like forever. Though the jeans and simple grey t-shirt were a bit ill-fitting, both being just the tiniest bit too baggy on her malnourished frame, she was grateful to finally be rid of the grimy clothes she had been stuck with since setting out on her own. She washed her hair twice to rid the strands of the thick layer of grime that coated them, feeling almost silly as she remembered how she used to be so adamant about having the color touched up every eight weeks on the dot. She let the damp locks hang heavily down her back, though there was a part of her that considered chopping them all off just to have the slightest bit of relief from the sticky Georgia heat. She found herself acutely aware of the sunken hollows of her cheeks and the angry dark circles beneath her eyes, but she knew they would even back out once she was able to get some nutrients again. She could smell the scent of whatever was cooking back at camp even from their place all the way down at the lake and her stomach grumbled forcefully in response.

Lori smiled at her. "Come on, I'll show you around camp and then we can eat."

Anna nodded in response and the two headed back up the hill to where Shane had stood guard. He led them across the grass to where the first few tents were set up, each one relatively close to the other but still far enough apart to offer some measure of privacy. The RV she found herself in earlier sat off to the side and she noticed there was a chair set up on top of it, presumably for someone to keep lookout. Near it were an old pickup truck, a Jeep and a Triumph Bonneville that looked like it had seen better days. Anna would be the first to admit that she didn't know a thing about cars beyond changing a flat tire or checking her oil, but her father had been a lover of motorcycles and she'd frequently found herself tagging along to shops and shows when she was a child. Though she had never driven one herself, she used to love riding on the back of her dad's old Honda. The sight of the bike brought back some fond memories for her, save for the angry Nazi insignia emblazoned on its gas tank.

"Shane! Lori!"

Anna recognized the voice as belonging to one of the men from the woods. When she turned, she saw the man jogging over to them. He looked young, maybe in his early twenties, but Anna had a feeling he was a little older than he looked. His dark hair was hidden beneath a baseball cap and he greeted her with a small wave.

"T-Dog wanted me to let you guys know dinner is ready. Also hey, I'm Glenn."

"Anna," she replied, raising her hand in response. "I recognize your voice."

"Oh yeah, it was me and T-Dog who brought you back here," He scratched the back of his neck a bit sheepishly. "We kind of, uh, broke your fall."

"Literally," Shane added with a smirk. "You fell right on top of them."

The fire rushed to Anna's cheeks so quickly her face practically burst into flames. "Oh god, I'm really sorry. Were you guys okay?"

Glenn shrugged good-naturedly and flashed a grin. "Yeah, it was no big deal. We're just glad you're alright."

"Yo!" Came a shout from across the common area. "Y'all gonna come eat or just stand around talking all day? 'Cause I'll take your share if you don't want it!"

"Better go," Lori murmured to her as the four of them made their way to where the rest of the camp had congregated near the fire. "I don't think you can afford to miss another meal."

Anna's stomach let out an angry growl again and when they neared the fire, she took the bowl that was handed to her gratefully. There were a series of logs set up as makeshift seats around a fire that was burning low, the embers glowing with the same yellows and oranges as the evening sky. She took a seat next to Lori as the smell of what looked like stew wafted through the air. Logically she knew she needed to pace herself; after going so long without eating anything of substance, consuming too much too quickly could cause her to get sick. Still, that didn't stop her from shoveling the food into her mouth greedily. She hardly took a breath as she ate, relishing the knowledge that she was finally getting the nutrients her body so desperately needed.

"Hey Dixon," Shane commented, breaking an uncomfortable silence Anna didn't even realize had fallen over the group. "Looks like we finally found someone who appreciates your squirrel."

Anna's cheeks flushed again from behind her bowl, though in the waning light she was hopeful no one could really tell. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand awkwardly, acutely aware that all eyes were on her. From the other side of the fire, she saw a pair of dark blue eyes latch onto hers. She fought the urge to shrink under the intensity of his gaze.

"Yeah well," the man grunted, moving his eyes back to his meal. "'Bout time."

"Oh please," one of the women to Anna's right rolled her eyes. She was a blonde woman with high cheekbones and striking eyes who looked to be about Anna's age. "No one except Dixon _likes_ squirrel. The poor thing's just starving."

"This actually isn't my first squirrel, believe it or not," Anna offered, unintentionally shifting the focus back to herself.

"No?" The woman quirked an eyebrow in response. "My condolences to your stomach."

Anna shrugged. "My daddy hunted quite a bit when I was growing up, so we had it from time to time. It's definitely been a while though."

"Since before you were dropping out of trees and scaring brothers half to death?" One of the men to her left joked as he tried to hide a grin. She assumed he must have been T-Dog.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. I hope I didn't hurt you."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, just a mild heart attack is all."

"Yeah, pretty sure you gave all of us a good scare," Shane added as he cast her a questioning look. "Certainly did a number on that shoulder of yours. How's it feeling?"

Anna had the unfortunate suspicion that she knew where this was headed. "It's okay," she replied, choosing her words carefully. "Sore."

"Just sore?" Shane pressed, leaning in closer. "You had a dislocated shoulder sitting untreated for three days and it ain't nothing but sore?"

"Untreated?" The blonde woman from before repeated incredulously. "I thought you said her shoulder blade was fractured. Didn't you make her that sling?"

"Yeah," Shane drawled with the faintest hint of sheepishness. "Turns out my diagnostic skills ain't quite up to snuff."

"Well if her shoulder was dislocated," the woman continued. "Who set it?"

"She did," Shane replied, nodding to her. "With Lori's help. Hardly even flinched."

" _You_ reset your own shoulder?" The woman echoed Shane once again. She regarded her for a moment before crossing her arms and leaning backward slightly. "I've got to say, that's badass; I'm impressed."

Anna opened her mouth to argue that it really wasn't all that impressive, but Shane was cutting her off. "That makes two of us. But it does make me wonder, where'd a girl like you learn how to do something like that?"

Anna hoped the dying light at least partially concealed the look of disdain on her face. There was no part of her that wanted to reveal to this group of veritable strangers that she had any medical expertise whatsoever. Medical knowledge was an invaluable trait these days and there was a part of her – a massive part, if she was being honest – that worried that if these people found out she was a doctor, she would never be allowed to leave. But what choice did she have in the matter? Whether intentionally or not, Shane had backed her into a corner. Should she lie? Could she even do so well enough to make them believe it?

Anna sighed. "It's what I did," she said finally by way of explanation. "Before."

"Oh," the woman spoke again as realization seemed to dawn on her. "Were you a nurse?"

Anna had to fight the instinctive urge to roll her eyes. If she had a dollar for every time someone assumed she was a nurse, she would have been able to pay off that crippling student loan debt a long time ago. She had always been intensely appreciative of all the nurses, CNAs, phlebotomists and medical technicians who worked alongside her at the hospital, but it never ceased to amaze her how so many people seemed to jump to the conclusion that she held one of those titles instead.

"No," she replied simply. "Not a nurse."

"Come on," Shane prodded. "You gotta give us more to go off of here. I think we're all wanting to know who you are – or were."

Anna's frown deepened as she realized she had little choice other than to tell the truth. She cleared her throat. "I'm, uh, Dr. Annalise Mason – just Anna though, please. I worked in Atlanta Medical Center's emergency department."

The excited murmurs rose up around her right on cue and she cast her gaze back down to the bowl in her hand to avoid meeting any of the eyes that were burning holes into her skin. Anna was thankful for the relative cover of darkness that helped her avoid their expectant looks. Her heart sank at their collective response. Anna couldn't blame them for being excited at having a medical professional in their midst but for her, all it did was further her awareness of just how vulnerable her current position was. She tried to focus on the sound of the fire crackling to distract her from the thousand questions being thrown her way, but one stood out above the rest.

"You're a doctor?"

Anna turned toward the source of the voice and found the same wide blue eyes she'd woken up to. She nodded at Lori's son.

"Wow," he breathed. "That's so cool. Did you ever have to fix someone who got shot?"

"Carl!" Lori admonished and the boy looked immediately regretful. "That's not something you should ask someone."

"It's okay," Anna assured her. She turned back to Carl. "I saw a lot of gunshot victims. The hospital I worked at was a level one trauma center – that means we were better equipped to deal with serious injuries, so a lot of the patients who needed very intensive care came to us."

"Woah," Carl was watching her with wide eyes as if he was meeting his favorite celebrity for the first time. "So you guys were like, the best?"

Anna couldn't help but smile at him. "I'm sure the other hospitals wouldn't want to hear you say it, but yes."

Carl opened his mouth to say something else but Lori cut across him, apologizing profusely. "I'm so sorry. Carl's father Rick was Shane's partner at the sheriff's department; he was shot on duty not long before all of this started happening. He didn't make it."

"Oh," Anna blinked at them in surprise. That certainly was not something she expected to hear. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

Despite catching her entirely off guard, Carl's question at least served to put a stopper in the flow of questions that had been coming her way. A strained silence fell over the group instead and Anna busied herself with moving the spoon around her empty bowl absently, if for no other reason than to give herself something to do with her hands. Her heart pounded violently inside her chest as she waited for the barrage of demands for her to stay, but the silence continued instead. When someone finally spoke, it was a man to Anna's left with a wide-brimmed fisherman's hat that covered a head of white hair.

"If you don't mind me asking," he began gently. "What was a doctor from the city doing up in a tree in the middle of the woods?"

Anna frowned as she set her spoon inside her bowl and laid them both on the ground in front of her. How could she tell a group of strangers she wasn't even sure she trusted yet that she was trying to avoid ending up in this exact situation?

"Hiding," she said finally and gestured to T-Dog and Glenn. "From them."

"You were hiding? From _us_?" Glenn repeated in shock, looking half-offended. "Why?"

"Well I mean, we are pretty intimidating," T-Dog countered.

"Maybe you're intimidating," Glenn mumbled. "I'm nice."

"I'm sorry," Anna explained and she was a little surprised that she truly meant it. "It wasn't anything personal. I just- I fell in with a bad group after I left Atlanta and I didn't want to risk that happening again."

Lori placed her hand on Anna's shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze. "Anna's had a rough go of things. She lost people recently."

A murmur of apologies rose up around her and she found herself caught in the gaze of the woman with the high cheekbones again. "If you ever want to talk, my sister Amy-" she gestured to the younger blonde girl beside her,"-and I have the tent right over there. My name's Andrea."

Anna hardly even had time to thank her as the introductions went on from there, each person giving her a small wave or smile in greeting. There was Glenn and T-Dog of course, followed by Dale with the fisherman's hat and Daryl who caught the squirrel. Morales and his family were beside him, along with Jim the mechanic, Carol, Ed and their daughter Sophia, and Jacqui. There was an elderly couple who opted to take their dinner in their tent, as well as a few others who she was told mostly kept to themselves.

"And Daryl's brother, Merle," Lori added after everyone else had been introduced.

"Too bad he's out chasing some mythical deer Glenn thinks he saw," T-Dog commented with a smirk. "Sure he would've made you feel welcome."

"Yeah, that's what we need," Shane scoffed. "Merle Dixon coming in here coked out of his mind and scaring her away."

Anna frowned. She had dealt with her share of drunks and drug addicts in the past, but she'd never really even considered what withdrawal would be like for someone in the state of the world as it was. Where could this Merle Dixon even find drugs these days? Did he really have that big of a stash beforehand to hold him over?

The sharp clatter of a bowl and spoon hitting the ground snapped Anna from her thoughts. When she looked up again, she saw that Daryl had tossed his utensils on the ground and was stomping his way back over to what she presumed was his tent.

"You know it upsets Daryl when you talk about his brother that way," Lori reminded Shane, who shrugged.

"Yeah, well it's the truth ain't it?" He turned back to Anna. "Don't you worry about Merle Dixon; I can handle him. But if you do decide to stay, it'd probably be best to keep your distance – from the both of them."

"You're not staying?" Carl half-shouted from beside his mother.

"I haven't decided yet…"

"Well," Dale added with a small smile. "We certainly hope you do. But Shane's right; it's probably a good idea to go ahead and stay clear of both those guys."

Another loud clatter caused Anna's attention to shift back to Daryl's retreating form, hardly more than a dark silhouette against the darkening sky. She could hear him muttering to himself as he kicked over something metal and she fought the urge to roll her eyes. Anna had no idea what this Merle was like, but she felt like she could wager a fairly decent guess. Besides, something told her Daryl Dixon had no interest in paying her any attention at all, and she had to say the feeling was mutual.

* * *

The RV bed was the most comfortable thing Anna had slept on since before she clocked in for her shift at Atlanta Medical Center all those weeks ago. Dale had graciously offered her the actual bed in the back as opposed to the makeshift one she'd woken up on earlier that day, but somehow sleep still eluded her. There was a dull throbbing in her shoulder that didn't seem to stop no matter how she twisted and turned, a constant reminder of her present situation. She'd popped some ibuprofen to help with the swelling but knew it was nothing more than a waiting game from that point forward. Though, if she was being honest, her shoulder wasn't the only thing keeping her awake. She couldn't stop the warring in her head as she tried to decide whether she should stay with Shane and Lori's group or head back out on her own.

Thus far, everyone had been more than gracious. From Glenn and T-Dog bringing her back to camp, to Shane and Lori patching her up, to how welcoming everyone had been at dinner and afterward, Anna knew she couldn't possibly ask for more and yet she still couldn't quell the uneasy churning in her stomach. Were they being _too_ gracious? What if their kindness was all a ruse and they were just waiting to gain her trust before turning on her just like the last group had? Or did they just want to keep her around for the value of her skills? She let out a frustrated sigh as she yanked the pillow from beneath her head and used it to cover her face. Was she being ridiculous? There hadn't been a single thing up to that point that had given her the least bit of cause for alarm; why was she still so afraid of these people?

As she watched the moonlight dance across the bedspread, Anna groaned. She knew she shouldn't be so reluctant to accept the help and relative security that came with being part of a group. Her lack of survival skills left her vulnerable and essentially helpless; she would have to be a fool to turn down an offer to link up with such a seemingly great group of people. But was this group too good to be true? Or was she just looking for a reason to say no because of her fear?

With a frown, Anna threw the covers off and scrambled off the bed. She didn't even bother to slip on the shoes Lori had given her – which she later learned came from Andrea, along with the clean clothes – and made her way toward the RV door. A gentle breeze caused strands of Anna's hair to blow across her face and she found goosebumps raised on her arms even though the night air was still warm and humid in the late Georgia summer. The grass was cool and slightly damp under her bare feet and it reminded her of summers long past when she and Alex would spend more time barefoot than not, chasing each other through the yard and catching lightning bugs in jars. She wondered what Alex would think of this little group of survivors and whether or not she would want to stay. She wished her sister was there to help her decide, but Anna knew there was no sense in wishing for something that would never be.

"Anna?"

The voice from somewhere up above her caused Anna to nearly jump straight out of her skin. Turning her gaze upward, she saw Dale leaning over the railing on the roof of the RV.

"What are you doing out here?"

"I couldn't sleep."

He nodded in understanding. "You want to come up? I just mixed up some instant coffee."

Anna pondered his offer for a moment before realizing she wasn't exactly doing anything else with her time. Her shoulder protested dully as she ascended the little ladder on the side of the RV but she ignored it. When she reached the top she saw that Dale had a camping chair set up along with a small camping stove and foldaway table, upon which sat two enamel mugs full of the aforementioned instant coffee. Dale moved to offer Anna his chair but she shook her head, opting instead to take a seat on the RV top with her back against the railing. When he held out one of the mugs to her, she took it gratefully.

For a while they sat in silence, Dale scanning the surrounding area through his binoculars every so often and Anna gazing off into the dark forest, the trees backlit by the glow of the moon in an otherwise clear sky. Anna knew this was the safest she had been since leaving the city. She didn't know exactly how far she had been from the camp when Glenn and T-Dog found her but even then, it had been a couple of days since she had crossed paths with one of the infected. There was a clear view of the road, though they were far enough away to not be easily spotted by anyone who may pass by. The lake obviously provided a sustainable source of water and they were near enough to the city to be able to scavenge there without having to travel too far of a distance. The setup was, by all accounts, ideal. And yet Anna still couldn't make up her mind.

"What's troubling you?" Dale asked after a long while.

Anna sighed. She was too tired to bother with weighing the pros and cons of evading the older man's question so she opted to be honest instead. "I'm trying to decide whether or not I should stay here."

"I see," Dale nodded slowly in understanding. "Well if you don't mind me asking, what's making you hesitate?"

Anna bit the inside of her cheek at his question. How could she tell this man that she was worried his group of seemingly friendly people would turn out to be a bunch of psychos?

Seeming to read her mind, Dale added, "Does it have to do with the group you were with before?"

"Yes," she said finally.

Dale nodded again. "Well, I don't think anyone can blame you for that. I won't pretend to know or understand what you've been through, but I do know it was dangerous business for a woman out there on her own before the world went to shit, and even more so now. Even the toughest and bravest need to rely on others sometimes."

"I wouldn't exactly call myself brave or tough," Anna replied with a roll of her eyes.

"No? Shane said you relocated that shoulder of yours and barely even flinched; I'd call that pretty tough. And the fact that you agreed to stay through the night even though you're clearly afraid? You don't think that's brave?"

Anna considered his question for a moment. To her, reducing her own shoulder wasn't the big deal everyone seemed to be making it out to be and it was certainly not something she would call herself "tough" for having done. In fact, Anna was the least brave or tough person she could possibly think of. She had always valued other attributes more – intelligence, loyalty, wit; all the things she felt did little to further her position in the new world they all found themselves living in. Brave and tough? Neither of those were characteristics she ever would have attributed to herself; they belonged to someone else she knew.

"My sister was brave," she countered. "And tough. It didn't save her in the end."

"Well, I didn't know your sister," Dale continued gently. "And those traits might not have saved her, but they could help save you. I know the word of a stranger probably doesn't mean too much, especially these days, but I can promise we'd do everything in our power to help keep you safe. I would lay down my life for anyone here in this camp."

He paused for a moment and Anna saw his lips quirk slightly. "Well, maybe not the Dixons. But definitely everyone else."

She couldn't help but let out a light laugh at that and in the back of her mind, she realized it had been a long time since she'd done so. It felt foreign against her lips, as though she had all but forgotten how to do it, but it was nice.

"All kidding aside," Dale told her seriously. "These are good people, Anna."

For a while Anna said nothing. She thought back to Carl's wide blue eyes and Lori's kind brown ones. She thought of Shane making a joke after she eviscerated his sling-making skills. She thought of Andrea offering to talk if she needed it and lending her clothes, of Carl's innocent questions and T-Dog's bantering. She tilted her head back and let the glow of the moon light up her face.

"Yeah," she said finally as the corners of her mouth turned upward. "I think so too."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you all so much for reading! Your views, favorites, follows and especially reviews are a huge part of what makes writing this little story so wonderful. I'm so relieved and humbled that you guys are so excited about what's to come and I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!

An incredibly special thanks to my amazing friend and beta-adjacent **BouncingKappa** , who never fails to catch the tiny details I get super excited about but worry no one else will notice.


	3. Big Chicken Dinner

**Disclaimer:** Nothing you recognize is mine, sadly.

* * *

There were a number of decisions Anna had made in her life that she wished she could go back and do over again – the time her five year old self placed her open hand face down on a hot stove burner, the stroke of genius she had at sixteen that involved cutting her own bangs, the terrible moment on Alex's twenty-first birthday when she attempted to channel her inner Shakira and decided to drunkenly dance on the bar top that ended in a fractured ankle and a lifetime ban from Single Brothers… Her list of questionable decisions was a long one indeed but joining Shane and Lori's little group of survivors was not one of them.

All thing considered, life at the quarry camp was fairly simple. Shane had set up a spare tent for Anna the morning she made the official decision to stay, not wanting to waste any time getting her settled and Anna had the suspicion that was because he worried she would change her mind. He placed her between Morales and his family and Andrea and Amy, proudly declaring it "prime real estate" with a handsome grin that threatened to rub off on her. In fact, she noticed that almost everyone at camp greeted her with warm smiles; it was something she found both comforting and a bit overwhelming as she still struggled with the constant dull ache of losing her sister and the fresh memories of what they both endured.

Anna found herself wondering often what Alex would think of the little group of survivors she found herself suddenly a part of. She imagined all the grief Alex would have given her for falling out of a tree onto Glenn and T-Dog and she knew how much she would have loved their corny jokes. There were still times when Anna found herself instinctively looking to where she assumed Alex would be, her mouth open to say something before the realization came rushing back and she had to steel herself to keep the waves from knocking her over. Sometimes when she was lying awake at night in the rickety old cot Dale had given her, she swore she could hear her sister's voice reminding her that guilt was useless. But guilt was Anna's overwhelming emotion, the one that shouted at her the loudest – guilt over Baker, over Alex, over all the terrible decisions she had made that led to losing the ones she cared about. It was enough to consume her but Anna knew she couldn't let it. _We do what we have to do_ , she would remind herself, calling back on the words Alex had said to her not long after they left the hospital. _And we survive._

Loathe as she was to admit it, being around the group did help. She found herself feeling more and more like her old self as the days wore on, despite the ever-present hole in her chest that never seemed to shrink. She'd long ago had the stages of grief drilled into her but she was still surprised to find all the tiny places where healing could hide. These days she was finding it in late night conversations with Amy and Andrea around a dying fire, long after everyone else had retired to their tents. She found it in early morning coffee with Dale while the grass was still damp from dew, in small talk shared with Carol and Jacqui and wide-eyed, innocent questions from the children. She was even finding it in her interactions with Shane as they would sit together sometimes and swap war stories – he of things he had seen on duty and her of what she witnessed in the hospital. It was an odd sort of healing, she knew, but it was healing nonetheless.

It wasn't long before Anna found her place in the routine of camp life and for the most part, things seemed to run like clockwork. Shane drove his Jeep down to the lake at the bottom of the quarry every other day to fill up a series of thirty-gallon plastic drums. Glenn made runs into the city every few days to scavenge for supplies while Dale and Jim spent most of their time working on repairing the RV. The Dixon brothers were off hunting more often than not and T-Dog, Carol and Jacqui were typically the ones who turned their spoils into something edible. The men alternated patrol shifts of the surrounding area, as well as who kept a lookout overnight on top of the RV. The women were primarily responsible for the more domestic tasks – namely laundry – a fact that Anna was surprisingly unbothered by, though she knew some of the others felt differently. Aside from her medical expertise, Anna knew she had relatively little to offer the group in the way of notable skills. But laundry? That was something she could handle.

Despite the relative cohesiveness, so many differing personalities coming together under such dire circumstances meant conflict was bound to arise at some point. It became quickly evident to Anna that Carol's husband Ed wanted little to do with the other survivors and expected Carol and their daughter Sophia to act accordingly. He allowed Sophia to play with Carl and Morales' children to an extent and made little objection to Carol's small talk with the other women, just so long as they both came running the second he called. A large part of Anna wanted to explain away Carol's skittish demeanor and the way Sophia cowered at the slightest rise in someone's tone but she had treated far too many domestic violence victims to be able to rationalize their behavior as anything other than what it was. She saw the way the others eyed Carol whenever she emerged from her tent with fresh bruises or other injuries, always veiled by a weak excuse about tripping in the woods or burning herself while ironing clothes, yet no one ever seemed to say a word. That fact alone was enough to send shockwaves of rage through her body even though she wasn't particularly surprised. For as nosy as southerners could be, they were generally quick to avoid any real interference when it came to something so serious, under the ruse of it being none of their business. It was as hypocritical a mindset as they came but it was something Anna had seen time and time again in her neighborhood growing up. The unspoken rule of "don't ask; don't tell" never sat well with her, though she knew there was little she could do about it. The only person who was in a position to address the situation was Shane and Anna knew it was impossible that he wasn't already aware. She waffled back and forth for several days before she finally asked him about it and he confirmed her suspicions.

"Yeah, I know," Shane muttered, looking very much like an exhausted parent as he wiped his hand down his face. "We all know. But what can we do about it? I kick him out and you know Sophia and Carol are gonna go with him, and that's a death sentence for those two. What's my other option? I can't just-" he broke off and Anna could see his fingers open and close around the pistol at his hip, whispering the words he didn't say. He let out a long sigh. "This ain't 'Goodbye Earl.' I'm caught between a rock and a hard place here, Doc."

Anna knew he was right. As much as she hated knowing what was happening to Carol and her little girl, there really was nothing any of them could really do about it. Her stomach turned every time she saw Carol pull the collar of her dress up a little higher to hide an angry whelp or when Sophia winced at a pain in her side when she moved the wrong way. It took her back to her days in the emergency department, to all of the children she had treated and all of the reports she had to make to Child Protective Services. Anna had spent countless hours weighing the pros and cons of reporting certain cases, wondering whether doing so would cause more harm than not, and that wasn't even including all of the cases she did report just to see the same children back again and again with different injuries each time. Though the circumstances were different, she could understand Shane's struggle and why he chose to refrain from taking action – but it still did little to calm the rage that boiled inside her veins.

Besides Ed, however, there was little tension in the group – until it came to the Dixons, of course. Daryl all but disregarded Anna entirely, speaking to her only when necessary and even then, he maxed out at roughly three syllables. He seemed to regard Anna as no one of any consequence at all, a fact that she didn't necessarily mind. Daryl's brother, on the other hand, was the polar opposite.

Merle arrived back at camp late in the afternoon on Anna's fourth day just as she was on her way back from the lake with a fresh load of laundry. She heard him before she ever saw him, the loud string of profanities he was spewing serving as a warning of his arrival. From where their tent sat on the far side of camp, Anna saw Carol cover Sophia's ears. Merle emerged from the woods with a line of rabbit carcasses strung up across his shoulder. He set his course directly for his tent, shouting to Daryl who sat outside of it sharpening his hunting knife. Anna could hear Shane and Dale's advice from her first night echoing in her mind, but the path back to the clothesline took her directly past their tent and the basket of sopping wet clothes in her arms was growing heavier by the second.

"Ain't no fucking deer in these goddamn woods," Merle complained to Daryl as he tossed the string of rabbits at his brother's feet. "Nothing out there but a bunch of bullshit rabbits. That squinty-eyed bastard don't know what he's-"

Anna hoped she would be able to slip past the pair during Merle's outraged rant without being noticed but she should have known that things could never go so smoothly. Merle pulled up short mid-sentence as she emerged from the side of their tent with her basket of clothes in hand, his gaze landing on her immediately. She could see him in her peripheral vision but kept her own eyes fixed straight ahead, silently pleading he would just let her be, though something told her she had a better chance of waking up in the morning to discover the last several weeks had just been a terrible dream. From the corner of her eye, she could see the family resemblance. Both Merle and Daryl had the same back country redneck air about them, though Merle stood both taller and broader in stature than his brother, making him all the more imposing. He let out a long, low whistle.

"Well, shit in my mouth and call it a sundae," Merle commented to his brother as he moved to block her path. "Who's this?"

"Doctor," Daryl grunted without even bothering to look up at them. "Same girl they found in the woods the other day."

"Doctor?" Merle repeated and Anna wasn't the slightest bit surprised at how he let his eyes roam the length of her figure. "Well now that's convenient; I do think I'm long overdue for a physical."

Anna rolled her eyes. There were a hundred and one stupid doctor-related pickup lines and she was convinced she had heard every last one of them. She tried to walk around him but Merle sidestepped to block her way once more.

"Hey now," he tried again, putting on an air of fake softness. "It don't gotta be all work, you know. We can even make it a family affair, right little brother?"

Bile rose in Anna's throat at his insinuation. She recoiled at the thought and was about to try to move around him again when Daryl's head snapped upward at his brother's words. His eyes locked firmly onto hers and she found herself glued to the spot from the intensity of his gaze. Her heart pounded wildly against her breastbone and she felt oddly exposed as he regarded her, his expression unreadable. The way he looked at her made her feel like each layer of her skin was being pulled away, leaving nothing but her bare bones behind and making her feel almost naked. Something foreign flashed in the blue of his eyes and for a moment she almost thought Daryl was going to say something in her defense to get his brother to stand down. In an instant his face fell into a hard scowl and he cast his attention back to the knife he had been sharpening. "Pass."

"There's a surprise," Merle grumbled sarcastically before turning back to her with a shrug. "More for ol' Merle then."

Anna's features screwed up into a repulsed grimace and her stomach turned violently at the thought. Merle Dixon reminded her of so many men she had dealt with both in the hospital and outside of it. He was loud, crass and utterly revolting and when she dared to meet his eyes, she found that his pupils were blown wide. She fought back a scoff; of course he was high, though she had a feeling a sober Merle probably wasn't much different.

"Get fucked," Anna ground out between gritted teeth and Merle made no attempt to stop her when she walked around him again. Behind her, she could hear his howl of laughter.

"That's what I'm tryna do, Doc!"

Merle watched her retreating figure as she made her way over to the clothesline where Amy and Andrea were waiting for her. The older blonde sent him a dirty look and a raised middle finger that elicited another deep laugh.

"Goddamn," Merle breathed as he took a seat on a log next to his brother. "What do you think we did right to end up with all these fine honey pots?"

Daryl scoffed. "What d'you mean 'done right'? You ran that girl off faster than a bat out of hell."

Merle responded with a dismissive wave of his hand before leaning back and stretching his arms behind his head. "Eh, she's just playing hard to get. But you ain't got nothing to worry about, baby brother," he smirked as he closed his eyes and tilted his face upward to the sun. "A girl like that ain't never gonna be interested in you anyway."

* * *

Anna woke to a steady stream of early morning sunlight creeping in through as many tiny gaps in her tent as it could find. She groaned in tune with her cot as she rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow, willing her body to give her another half hour or so of sleep. She had always been an early riser - something she credited to her inconsistent sleep schedule and the clinicals during school that had her up long before the sun – and that was one thing that evidently had not changed with the rest of the world. She sighed as she tossed her pillow aside and swung her legs over the edge of the cot, tugging on her jeans and t-shirt with a sleepy sluggishness that had yet to wear off. She laced up her boots and threw back the flap of her tent to step out into the morning air. A thick haze lingered over the camp, bathing everything around her in a light shade of grey. The morning sun was still low in the sky, barely peeking over the horizon and signaling to Anna that it was even earlier than usual. Humid summer air settled onto her skin, already warm despite the early hour and indicating that the day was going to bring yet another round of blistering heat.

From the other side of camp, Dale raised his hand in greeting from his place atop the RV. Most mornings she found herself with only him or Shane for company, two fellow early risers who often opted to cover the night watch. Anna gave him a short wave in response as she moved to make her way over to him but a glimpse of movement in her peripheral vision caused her to pull up short. From where the Dixon brothers had set up their tent on the far edge of camp she could barely make out Daryl through the haze. He sat alone on the same crudely chopped stump as he had during her first unfortunate encounter with Merle over a week ago. There were two rusted buckets in front of him and she could see that one was full of squirrel carcasses, a series of trophies he and Merle had brought back from their hunting excursion the day prior. Anna let her eyes scan the surrounding area in search of the elder brother but she found him notably absent. She assumed he was either out hunting or still asleep, though she knew which was more likely.

Of all the traits that melded together to make up the mess of atoms that was Merle Dixon, there was one in particular that stood out to Anna: he was restless. Whereas Daryl sometimes stayed back at camp and busied himself with other tasks, Merle spent almost all of his time out hunting. In the roughly two weeks since Anna arrived at the quarry camp, she'd only seen Merle a handful of times – a fact that she was excessively grateful for. She had done her best to heed Shane and Dale's advice and steer clear of him, something Merle's frequent absences made that much easier. He was more of a crude nuisance than anything, an annoying blip on the radar to be avoided if for no other reason than for one's own sanity.

Daryl, on the other hand, was another story entirely; he kept so much to himself that it seemed the rest of the group often forgot about him altogether. Anna had hardly spoken to him since she arrived at camp, though she hadn't actually made any attempts at conversation. His outburst at dinner her first night coupled with his brother's behavior and Shane and Dale's advice was enough to urge her to keep her distance. Admittedly, however, there was a part of her that wished she had made some sort of effort. Despite keeping mostly to himself he did at least take his meals with the rest of the camp on the occasion that Merle wasn't around, though he served more as a silent observer as opposed to an active contributor to the conversation. Still, no one made any real attempts to engage him, including Anna; in her haste to avoid Merle she found herself avoiding Daryl by association.

Her face fell into a frown. How did one even begin to converse with someone who communicated primarily in grunts and scowls? She couldn't put her finger on why it irked her but there was no denying that it did. While Merle made a point of being loud and crass and generally off-putting, Anna found herself unintentionally lumping his brother into the same category despite having little evidence to support such a decision.

Anna's frown faded into a hard line of determination as her feet marched her forward of their own accord. In a series of long, purposeful strides she found herself with Dale at her back and Daryl under her nose, blinking up at her with the same unnerving intensity as he had during her first encounter with Merle. She had no idea where the mutation occurred in his genetic makeup to give him the power to make someone feel so wholly exposed with just a look but she certainly was not a fan of it. She fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest as she stared down at him for what she was positive was far too long before snatching a squirrel out of one of the buckets between them. She bent down to claim the trapper knife from the roll laid out at his feet and sat on the misshapen log across from him.

"I'm helping you with this," she declared lamely and fought the urge to grimace as she gave herself a sharp mental kick. Whatever flighty compulsion she had to try and engage Daryl was rapidly submitting to the general awkwardness of the situation and she was regretting her decision more and more with each breath. She felt like she'd been set up by her friends with someone who was fundamentally wrong for her in every possible way and now she was dealing with the inevitable awful first date.

Anna refused to meet his eyes though it was impossible to ignore the way they bore into her, practically leaving singe marks on her skin. He had one hand wrapped around the fluffy tail of a squirrel and the other holding a tuft of fur he'd pulled from the base of the tail. For a heartbeat Anna wondered if he was going to respond with some colorful insistence that he didn't need her help, but she pushed the thought away and forced herself to get to work instead. She had just barely pressed the tip of the blade into the base of the tailbone when the sound of Daryl tossing his squirrel into the second bucket caused her to jump.

"You even know what you're doing?" He sent her a doubtful look as he plucked another dead rodent from the water-filled bucket. "Can't have you fucking up our food."

"I know what I'm doing," she assured him, sliding her blade underneath the squirrel's hide and drawing it forward. "This isn't my first rodeo."

Daryl half-scoffed as he pulled out another handful of fur, thoroughly unconvinced. "Make sure you don't cut off the tail, makes it a hell of a lot harder."

"I _know_ ," Anna repeated, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Whatever possessed her to go over there in the first place had suddenly morphed into mild annoyance. "Cleaning squirrel's like riding a bike; you never forget."

She placed the carcass on the ground at her feet, the toe of her boot resting on top of its hind legs as she yanked the tail upward with a tearing sound that made her nose scrunch up. "Even if you wish you could."

Daryl gave no response as she continued to work. It had been a long time since she'd cleaned a squirrel, since long before she had even moved to Atlanta, but it was true that she hadn't forgotten. It almost made her smile to think back on it; cleaning the spoils of her father and Alex's hunting trips was always her least favorite chore and yet here she was, doing it voluntarily. When she'd finished with her squirrel Daryl held his hand out to her expectantly, inspecting the carcass after she dropped it into his upturned palm. Seemingly satisfied, he slid over a third bucket and dropped the carcass into it.

"Judging by the lack of criticism, I assume it gets the Daryl Dixon stamp of approval?"

He scoffed again as she reached over to start on another. "Ain't bad."

"High praise coming from someone who never says anything." This time Anna didn't bother trying to stop her eyes from rolling upward, though Daryl's response had given her enough of a confidence boost that her anxiety chipped away to let the good-natured tone in her voice shine through. He shrugged.

"Talk when I got something to say."

Anna huffed out a sigh although she wasn't surprised; she couldn't really say she was expecting a life changing conversation from the younger Dixon. It suited her just fine. Anna was used to filling uncomfortable silences or distracting her patients with conversation. How different could it be?

"My mama always said I was too slow at this," she continued with a small smile as she gestured to the half-cleaned squirrel in her hand. "My daddy and sister would get back in the afternoon and she'd say I'd have all the squirrels cleaned up just in time for breakfast."

"Nothing wrong with that," Daryl said. "Fried up with some biscuits and gravy? That's the best way to eat 'em."

Anna's face split into a wide grin at his words and she gave her head a quick shake before she spoke again. "That's exactly what Alex – my sister – used to say. When she served her first tour overseas she used to tell me about all the weird things from home that she didn't think she'd miss and that was one of them."

It was a fond memory for Anna, one that picked at the edges of the band aid over her heart at the same time as it sent a comforting warmth down through the tips of her fingers. The dull ache persisted deep inside her chest but she couldn't help but smile at the memory of walking to her mailbox and finding a letter from Alex. She'd always addressed them to "Dr. Annalise Mason, M.D." long before Anna had even received her medical school acceptance letter. Alex had a particular knack for knowing exactly how to give Anna a boost when she needed it and always found some small way to remind her that she would meet that goal one day.

"She military?" Daryl asked and when Anna looked up she was surprised to find him regarding her from the corner of his eye. She nodded as she tossed her clean squirrel aside and started on another.

"Army sergeant. That was always her dream; she used to take my dolls and rip off an arm or a leg and then give them back to me saying she had to do a field amputation." The corners of her mouth rose at the memory. If she closed her eyes, she was certain she'd be to see that same toothy grin from her childhood as her sister held out a dismembered American Girl doll without an ounce of remorse. "Our parents stopped buying us dolls after a while."

"No shit," Daryl mumbled with a scoff. "Merle was military too for a bit."

"Oh yeah?" Anna cocked an eyebrow at his words; she had a difficult time picturing Merle Dixon taking orders from anyone, let alone a drill sergeant who got off on yelling in his face. Daryl nodded.

"Got a dishonorable discharge for punching a sergeant."

Anna let out an odd noise that was halfway between a laugh and an actual cackle; that was one thing she definitely had no trouble believing. "That's something they'd have in common then; Alex got a bad conduct discharge but she always called it a-"

"Big chicken dinner?" Daryl guessed with a smirk. "Yeah, Merle loves that stupid phrase."

The smile lingered on Anna's face as they fell into silence, this time much more comfortable than the last. She could hear the hustle and bustle of everyone's morning routine as the others started making their way out of their tents to start the day. From the corner of her eye she could see Amy and Andrea on the far side of camp as they eyed her curiously. She knew she would be walking into a mine field of questions as soon as they got hold of her.

"Why'd she do it?"

Anna started at the sound of Daryl's voice, her hand jerking hard as she jumped and sliced off the tail of her squirrel. She swore under her breath and the blood rushed to her cheeks when she looked up at him. He tossed his clean squirrel into the bucket and held out his hand to take hers instead. She was surprised to find that he offered no biting remark on her slip up but she had no intentions of questioning her good fortune on that front.

"Your sister," he clarified as he set to work on finishing her botched squirrel. "You said she punched a sergeant too."

"Oh," Anna's mouth rounded in soft surprise. She blinked rapidly a few times before giving her head a quick shake and setting back to work on cleaning one of the final squirrels. "Yeah, it was during her third tour. She'd become pretty good friends with one of her Lieutenants and one day she told Alex that one of the other sergeants had been-" her voice dropped off as she searched for the best words to tactfully explain the situation. "Inappropriate with her."

"So she hit him?"

"A few times." Anna felt her lips curve upward as she kept her head down, eyes focused on the task at hand. "She fractured his orbital floor, his nose and one of his cheekbones and I'm pretty sure she knocked out a few teeth. She sat in a military prison in the Middle East for twelve weeks before they court martialed her."

Those three months had been some of the most difficult of Anna's life. She was finishing up her residency and they had recently lost their mother, then suddenly she stopped receiving any form of communication from her sister and no one could or would give her any answers. "The Lieutenant refused to testify so it ended up looking like she attacked the guy unprovoked. He got an honorable discharge for medical reasons and she lost all credibility."

Anna had heard stories of military members who received other-than-honorable discharges and the effects that had on their lives, but watching someone so close to her deal with those repercussions was another story entirely. Alex lost nearly every single veteran's affairs benefit she had and, in spite of her Bachelor's degree, was denied even an interview at every job she applied to. When she finally found work it was as a bouncer at a seedy gentleman's club downtown. It was grueling work with long hours but it paid under the table and it was better than nothing.

"She sounds like a tough bitch," Daryl said finally and Anna let out a laugh that was hardly more than a breath.

"She was. Way tougher than me for sure."

She glanced up at him and was surprised to find him staring at her again, his eyes boring holes through her clothes into the very depths of her soul. He looked as if he was caught somewhere between trying to read her and wanting to say something and it was an odd sort of mixture that Anna couldn't quite pin down. She had the hide halfway pulled off of her final squirrel but found herself freezing in the middle of the act. For a moment they sat in a strange suspension, neither one either moving or speaking as their eyes stayed locked onto one another's. She wanted to speak if for no other reason than to get him to divert his gaze but she found herself coming up short. The words seemed to jumble into a disconcerted mess in her mind and the only thought she could properly piece together involved the exact shade of blue of his eyes.

A loud, too-familiar voice snapped Anna from her thoughts, startling her so badly she yanked the remainder of the hide off of her squirrel when she jerked. She fought back a groan as heavy footsteps made their way over to the pair.

"Get up, little brother!" Merle shouted by way of greeting and Anna felt her face fall immediately as she steeled herself for another round of lewd comments. Where had he even come from? Across from her, Daryl tore his eyes away from hers and focused them on the other man instead. "We're going on a run."

"Who's we?" Daryl asked.

"You and me, Shortround-" he gestured to Glenn over by the RV, "Doo-Rag-" to T-Dog, "Barbie-" to Andrea, "George Lopez-" to Morales, "and Black Beauty-" to Jacqui.

Anna scrunched up her nose at his nicknames at the same time as Merle seemed to notice her presence. His voice took on that air of false softness she growing too familiar with and it made Anna's stomach do a violent somersault.

"Unless you're too busy playing doctor," he sent her a wink as he gestured to the squirrel in her hands. "I do love me a girl who ain't afraid to get her hands dirty."

Anna opened her mouth to say something but Daryl cut her off, his features set in a hard scowl. "Shut up," he growled, shooting her a look that could have turned her straight to stone. "We were just talking."

"Talking?" Merle repeated, bending so he was crouching next to Anna who still refused to meet his eyes. "About what, your feelings? Does Darylina have himself a little crush?" He turned so he was directly in front of Anna's face, giving her no choice but to look at him. "Did my baby brother try and pull some smooth romance over on you, Doc? Tell you all about how he rubbed one out this morning thinking of your pretty face?"

A few things seemed to happen simultaneously in that moment. Anna felt what she suspected was every drop of blood in her body rush to her cheeks as Merle let out a sound that reminded her very much of a cackling hyena. Her eyes reflexively flew to Daryl at the same time as his moved to her. She could see his face and the tips of his ears tinged violently with every shade of red she could possibly think of and in the split second that their eyes locked onto one another, she caught the flash of utter embarrassment colored by something she couldn't put a name to. He opened his mouth to retort but it was Anna who got there first.

"Didn't you come over here with a purpose?" She muttered in a feeble attempt to diffuse the situation and save both Daryl and herself from further humiliation. When she finally let her eyes meet Merle's again she saw that his pupils were blown so wide she could hardly even see the light blue irises. Beads of sweat fell down the sides of his face like raindrops down a window, coming to a head at the apex of his jaw that was clenched painfully tightly. If she let her eyes flicker to his neck she could see his pulse jumping wildly against his throat, pounding out his own personal bass beat with such force that it looked as though it could take on a life of its own and jump out of his skin entirely.

"I certainly did, Doc," he mused before rising to his feet and turning back to Daryl. "Come on, the cavalry leaves in five."

"Hell no," Daryl countered. "You think I want to go into the city with those idiots? I ain't putting my hide on the line for one of them."

Merle just shrugged, surprisingly nonplussed by Daryl's rejection. "Fine, stay here and _talk_. You can tell your doting brother all about it when I get back, just don't do nothing I wouldn't do."

He graced Anna with a final wink as he added, "which ain't much" before turning on his heel and making his way back over to the group that was getting ready to leave. Anna watched his retreating figure for a moment before turning her attention back to Daryl, who was suddenly extremely engrossed in cleaning his squirrel and made no attempt to meet her gaze.

"Daryl," she tried. Nothing.

"Daryl," she repeated, firmer this time. "You're not seriously going to let him go to Atlanta with them, are you?"

Daryl's head finally snapped up and he regarded her with such an intense glare that she had to fight to keep herself from recoiling. The way he was looking at her was so entirely different from the way he'd regarded her not even ten minutes prior that if she didn't know better, she would have questioned whether or not she was even speaking to the same person. Flecks of embarrassment still embedded themselves in his irises and mingled with something new that Anna could only describe as hatred.

"Why shouldn't I?" He asked finally, his voice hard as stone to match his eyes.

Anna's brows knit together at his response. "Are you joking?"

Daryl blinked at her but said nothing.

"He's so strung out his eyes were practically going in two different directions. You need to-"

"I need to do what?" His tone changed so quickly that Anna hardly had time to process it, the venom dripping from his words as though he had fangs in his mouth. "If you're so worried about what Merle's doing then go talk to Shane. I ain't his babysitter and I ain't wasting my time with your bullshit anymore."

Anna gaped at him. His sudden change in demeanor struck her so violently that he may as well have reached over and slapped her across the face. She found herself caught somewhere between shocked and offended and she wasn't sure which to feel more.

"Fine," she said finally as she stood, brushing her hands off on her pants quickly. She left Daryl's knife sitting in the dirt as she snatched up her squirrel roughly. As she walked past she threw it against his chest with all the force she could muster, gaining the tiniest bit of satisfaction when he jumped backward a fraction of an inch. The carcass slid downward with an almost comedic slowness, leaving a dark red blood stain in the middle of his shirt as it fell forward and emptied a mess of entrails onto his lap.

"If that's how you treat someone who didn't do shit to you then finish it yourself, asshole," she spat as she walked away, thoroughly regretting the moment she decided to talk to Daryl Dixon.

* * *

"I just don't understand why she had to go!"

Amy was rounding out the tail end of a twenty-minute tirade about Andrea's decision to accompany the group to Atlanta. The solid _woosh_ of her axe cutting through the air punctuated her words as it struck her target directly in the center, sending two splintered pieces of wood falling to either side. It had been five and a half hours since Andrea and the others set out for the city and it took all of ten minutes after the van pulled away for Amy to start driving herself mad with worry. Anna attempted to distract her with a series of menial tasks – patching up holes in a few shirts for Morales, collecting mushrooms to use in that night's stew – but nothing seemed to work. By the fourth hour Anna managed to convince her to help collect firewood, a task normally handled by Jim or T-Dog or one of the other men but that Anna thought might help take Amy's mind off of being stuck in the cruel limbo of "hurry up and wait."

Her motives, however, weren't entirely pure. Anna's blood still simmered with rage when she thought back to the way Daryl treated her that morning. She was thankful that he had retreated to the woods to hunt shortly after, which at least meant that she wouldn't have to look at him around camp. Still, she knew it would do her well to channel that negative energy somewhere useful. Or at least, that was what she told herself when she brought her axe down on a log and pretended it had Daryl Dixon's face on it.

"You know Andrea," Anna began when Amy finally paused to take a breath. "She hates the division of labor around here. Honestly I'm surprised it took her this long to convince Shane to let her go on a run. She was half a second away from tying Glenn to a tree and dressing up as him just to get a chance to go into the city."

Amy shook her head as her face split into a reluctant grin. She let the bladed end of her axe touch the ground as she leaned against the handle, using the back of her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead. There was the faintest hint of darkening in the sky, teasing a rain shower that could finally give them a little relief from the heat and the harsh sun. A thick blanket of dark grey clouds was rapidly approaching and, in the distance, a heavy rumble of thunder rolled.

"I know you're right," Amy admitted. "I just keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong and I don't-" her voice broke off as she looked away for a moment. "I don't know what I would do if something happened to her."

"I know," Anna replied. How many times had she worried over Alex throughout the years, even before the dead started rising and walking around? There was nothing anyone could say to quiet her frantic mind whenever just a little too much time passed between letters. Even in the short time they had together after Atlanta fell, Anna would pace and fret and chew her nails down to the nubs any time Alex left her, always afraid it would be the last time. She understood Amy's feelings all too well.

"We should head back to camp," she offered. "It shouldn't be too much longer before they get back."

Amy regarded her for a moment before nodding. They took up the handles of their respective wheelbarrows, each one piled high with crudely chopped logs. When they got near enough to the center of camp Jim and Shane hurried over to relieve them, wheeling their spoils over to a series of neatly stacked piles to the right of the RV. From the corner of her eye she could see Lori hastily removing the still-damp laundry from the clothesline before the rain started to fall. When Anna made her way over to help her, Lori greeted her with a tight-lipped smile.

"How's she doing?"

"As well as can be expected," Anna replied with a shrug as she unclipped a t-shirt from the line and tossed it into a basket at her feet. "She's just worried."

"I can't say I blame her," Lori sighed. "Glenn is never gone this long."

Anna nodded in agreement. It was true; Glenn seemed to know the city like the back of his hand. He had the routine of getting in, getting what he needed and getting back to camp down to a science and was rarely ever gone longer than two or three hours. Though she wouldn't admit it to Amy, Anna was beginning to worry too and she had a strong suspicion the others felt the same.

"There hasn't been any word over the radio?"

Lori shook her head as her brows knit together. "Nothing."

The two fell into an anxious silence as they worked, the only sounds coming from Dale and Jim as they fussed over the RV's radiator hose or from the occasional rumble of thunder as the clouds moved ever closer. Lori's eyes flickered to Carl and Shane as the latter made his way back over to continue a knot tying lesson. Anna caught the corners of Lori's mouth turning upward when she stole a glance at them. One of the things Anna had noticed during her time at the quarry camp was how highly Carl thought of Shane, seeming to place him on that same heroic pedestal as he would his father. She knew Lori had to be grateful that Carl had someone there to fill that role but the thought of the wide-eyed little boy never seeing his father again plucked Anna's heartstrings in all the worst ways.

"It's getting late," Amy declared and when Anna spun to face her, she saw that she was pacing. "They should've been back by now."

"Worrying won't make it any better," Dale chastised gently as he ducked out from beneath the RV's hood. "Andrea's a tough cookie; she'll be fine."

Amy nodded at him though the distress etched across her delicate features said that she wasn't even remotely convinced. Anna turned back to the task at hand and reached for the last few articles of clothing, meeting Lori's eyes across the line as she did. They exchanged equally unsure looks and Anna could feel the coil of dread in her stomach winding even tighter. She wished she had words to quell Amy's fears but knew there were none.

The shadow cast by the clouds above crept closer to them as another clap of thunder pierced the air. As if on cue, it was followed by a faint crackling from the radio and every head in the immediate vicinity shot up at once. Dale tossed aside the rag he was using to wipe his hands and climbed to the top of the RV with a speed Anna didn't know he possessed. Lori came around the clothesline as Carl rushed to her side with Shane right behind. As Anna moved closer she felt a hand wrap tightly around her wrist. Amy's fingers dug sharply into her skin but she hardly even felt them as they waited, each person holding their breath as they strained to make out the words coming through the receiver.

"Base camp," came a crackling voice from the other end. "Can anybody hear me? This is T-Dog."

Anna's heart jumped straight into her throat, as she was sure everyone else's did as well.

"Hello?" Dale spoke into the receiver. "Reception's bad on this end. Repeat. Repeat!"

"Shane?" T-Dog's broken voice was barely audible through the static. "Is that you?"

"Is that them?" Lori asked from behind Shane, a hopeful note coloring her voice.

"We're in some deep shit." Static. "We're trapped in the department store." Static. "Geeks all over the place; we're surrounded."

"He said they're trapped?" Shane repeated as Anna's heart went plummeting back to the ground as if it had just crested the top hill of a roller coaster and was on the descent.

"T-Dog," Dale tried again. "Repeat that last. Repeat!"

The radio fell silent with an ominous finality. They stood in silence for a moment that felt like a year, Amy's fingers steadily digging deeper and deeper into Anna's wrist.

"He said the department store," Lori said at last and Dale nodded.

"I heard it too."

She turned to face Shane with a look that must have conveyed every single one of her intentions because he cut her off before she even opened her mouth.

"No," his voice was final, unyielding. "No way. We do not go after them. We do not risk the rest of the group. Y'all know that."

Amy dropped Anna's arm as if it was a white hot iron, spinning around to face Shane so quickly that she was hardly more than a blur.

"So we're just going to leave her there?"

"Look, Amy," Shane began. "I know this ain't easy-"

"She volunteered to go!" Amy shouted at him, every ounce of worry and rage and fear and sadness dripping from her words. Her eyes flashed wildly with her anger and she took another step toward him. "To help the rest of us!"

She regarded him for a moment with a venomous look and when she finally spoke again, her words were spat out like poison. "She's my sister, you son of a bitch."

"I know," Shane tried again. His voice was steady and even, something he could undoubtedly attribute to his law enforcement training. "And she knew the risks, alright? If she's trapped then she's-"

 _Gone_ , he wanted to say but the words died on his tongue. From the corner of his eye he could see Carl, still holding tightly to Lori as every bit of his attention was focused on Shane. He swallowed a groan and wiped his hand down his face before trying again.

"Look, Dale's right; your sister's tough as nails. Plus she's with Glenn and Morales and – shit – even Merle Dixon. You think that crazy son of a bitch is gonna let himself die out there? If there's any way out of that mess, they'll find it."

For a heartbeat Amy still looked as though she was going to strike him, the anger practically radiating off of her in waves. Instead she spun on her heel and made a beeline for the tent she shared with Andrea, her shoulders shaking as she did. Cracks spread out over the surface of Anna's heart as if it were ice, threatening to send her spiraling down into the waters below. The greater part of her felt Amy's fury so purely that it was almost as though she was looking down on herself, watching from outside her body as she lost her own sister. Still, there was the tiniest place somewhere at the back of her mind that understood Shane's decision. She couldn't say whether she agreed or disagreed with it, but she could at least understand at the most basic level that he had to consider the group as a whole. It was a decision she certainly did not envy him for having to make, especially considering the foul look Lori was currently sending him. He ran a hand down his face again before shaking his head and turning back to Carl.

Anna caught Lori's eye again as Shane turned away and the two seemed to be sharing a brainwave. Another clap of thunder sounded overhead at the same time as a fat raindrop met its end on Anna's cheek. She and Lori each snatched up their baskets of clothes and made their way after Amy, crawling inside her tent and zipping the flap behind them just as the rain truly began to fall. Amy was sprawled across her cot with her face pressed firmly into her pillow as she sobbed into it, letting her sorrow pool there with every violent wracking of her shoulders. Lori tossed her basket aside as she moved to sit behind the younger girl and Anna did the same, crouching down at the head of the cot. For a while neither of them said anything as Lori rubbed soothing circles onto Amy's back and Anna brushed away the golden strands of hair that tried to stick to her forehead and tear-stained cheeks. Rain pelted against the tent as the thunder rolled, doing little to drown out the sound of Amy's sobs.

After a while she quieted, her shoulders starting to settle as her breathing returned to normal. She wiped her tears away roughly with the back of her hand before pushing herself into a seated position and moving her pillow so Anna could sit beside her.

"I just don't understand," she whispered, her voice sounding rough and strained from her raw throat. "How can he say that? How can he just leave her there, leave them all there?"

"I know," Lori murmured in response as she wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulders. She shook her head.

"You don't though," Amy protested weakly, sounding utterly defeated. "No one does."

"I do," Anna said before she could stop herself, her voice barely even audible against the pounding of the rain.

Two sets of eyes shot to her at once, latching onto her face with such rapt attention that she felt a faint blush rising to her cheeks. Anna had made no mention of what happened to her sister to anyone, partly because she had no desire to relive it but also because she was worried about what they would think of her. She knew she couldn't tell them the whole truth – there was no denying that – but there was a part of her that felt that she owed it to Amy in that moment to let her know that she wasn't alone. She cleared her throat and looked to Lori.

"You asked me that first day if I'd lost people," Lori nodded. "Well I wasn't entirely honest with you."

Anna waited to see if either woman would say anything and when they didn't, she continued.

"Before Glenn and T-Dog found me I was with someone – my sister, Alex. She got me out of the hospital in Atlanta and we were headed to the Alabama coast when we ran into these guys just outside of the city. One of them was injured and I-" she broke off at the memory, casting her eyes downward. She moved to pick at a stray thread on the bedsheet if for no other reason than to give her shaking hands something to do.

"I was adamant about helping him. They ended up taking us back to their camp saying they wanted to feed us as a way to say thanks, but then everyone found out I was a doctor and they wouldn't let us leave."

"That's why you didn't want us to know," Lori's realization came out in a breath, her eyes widening just a fraction. Anna nodded.

"We tried to sneak out that night but got caught. They split us up and we each basically had a guard on us 24/7 from that point forward. It was two weeks of…" she paused, biting the inside of her cheek as she tried to find the best word to describe what those days had entailed. "Hell."

The string snapped off between Anna's fingers and she frowned as she let it drop to the floor. She could remember every detail of those two weeks as if she was watching them play back on a reel of film behind her eyelids. There were smells and sounds and the feel of sharp rocks digging into her back that still kept her up at night, each one as vivid in her memory as when she first experienced them. But the one thing she remembered most were a pair of pale grey eyes, so light that they were almost silver, accompanied by a southern drawl so thick it sounded feigned. He was the de facto leader of the group, a broad and burly man who had a particular knack for making Anna's life miserable during her time there. She had always tried to refrain from saying she hated anyone but god, did she hate Clint.

"What happened?" Amy's soft voice broke through her thoughts, pulling her out of the rabbit hole and back onto solid ground. Anna could have smiled at the memory if it wasn't for the way the story ended.

"The leader of the group was this guy named Clint. One day he took a group out on a run and it went south; he ended up getting a pretty nasty wound on his leg. It seemed pretty straightforward but he must have been bitten in the exact same spot or something – I still don't know. I thought the wound had just gotten infected so I kept giving him antibiotics but nothing worked and the infection ended up killing him."

 _Not a lie_ , she told herself. _Not completely._

"None of us knew about the bite so we weren't expecting him to turn. He ended up biting three people before anyone even realized what was going on and then everything was just chaos," she shrugged. "Alex and I saw the opportunity so we took it."

"You got away," Amy pointed out. "That's good!"

Anna nodded. "We did. But they had this huge stockpile of weapons they kept about a half mile or so from camp – all kinds of heavy stuff. Alex wanted to go back and get a few things so we'd have a better chance of surviving. We had plans to meet up at a rally point and she told me that if she wasn't there in forty-five minutes to leave without her."

Amy's face fell as her brows knit together. One hand closed over her chest. "But she never showed."

Anna shook her head. Hot tears pricked at the backs of her eyes and she willed them to stay put, worried that if she let them fall then they might never stop.

"I waited two hours but I could hear some of the guys from camp getting close and I knew I had to leave. I started walking and I just kept trying to get farther and farther away until Glenn and T-Dog found me."

A heavy silence fell over the three of them, no one daring to speak even if they had the words to stay. At the back of her mind, Anna was vaguely aware that the rain had stopped. Two hands reached out to take hers and when she looked up, both sets of eyes were on her.

"I'm sorry," Lori murmured as she gave her hand a squeeze. "I'm so sorry."

Anna tried to offer her a grateful smile but knew it probably came out weak instead. The ache in her chest made her feel like she had been dunked in an ice bath, the frigidness spreading out from her heart all the way down to the tips of her fingers. The grief was an odd sort of feeling, one she didn't think anyone could ever accurately describe. It was something that could only be felt to be understood, though she wouldn't have wished that feeling on anyone.

Lori gave her hand a final squeeze before dropping it and rising to her feet, her features set into a stony mask of determination. "I'm going to go talk to Shane," she declared, snatching up her clothes basket. "See if I can get him to reconsider."

Amy gave her a small but thankful smile and Lori turned on her heel, letting the flap of the tent fall shut behind her. She let her head fall to rest against Anna's shoulder.

"You know the worst part?" Amy whispered, the faint crack in her voice signaling that she was holding back another round of tears. "I didn't even really say goodbye because I thought I was going to see her again."

The safety pins holding Anna's resolve together snapped in an instant, their sharp ends embedding themselves deep in the tender flesh of her heart. Something akin to a dry sob escaped her in spite of her efforts to swallow it back down.

"I know," she whispered, wishing there was something more she could say. She wove her fingers through Amy's and gave her hand a firm squeeze, hoping that somehow the gesture would give her just a tiny bit of comfort but knowing it likely wouldn't. "I know."

For a while they stayed that way, neither one of them either wanting or needing to say anything. Anna was caught in a strange limbo wherein her heart felt like a fifty-pound weight and yet she somehow felt that a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. There was an odd sort of relief in finally telling someone about losing Alex, something that made her feel as though it wasn't a weight she had to bear all on her own anymore. For a moment she wondered if Amy and Lori would have been so understanding and gracious if she had told them the full story, but she brushed the thought away as quickly as it arose. How deep would her trust in someone have to run before she cracked open that Pandora's box? Even then, something told Anna it would be a story that lived and died with her alone.

"You should try to rest," she told Amy as the blonde shifted her weight off of her. "I'm going to go hang these clothes back up and see if Lori's made any headway with Shane."

Amy nodded and Anna stood, stretching her stiff legs for a moment before snatching her clothes basket and moving to leave.

"Hey Anna," Amy called to her just as she'd reached a hand out to part the tent flaps. "I'm really sorry about your sister but-" her voice trailed off as she cast her eyes aside, a sad and sheepish look on her face. "It's nice to know there's someone here who understands."

Anna gave her a small smile and a quick nod before stepping out into the late afternoon. The air was thick and heavy from the rain, the humidity causing her clothes to stick to her skin almost immediately. The sun peeked out from behind the lingering clouds and the scent of the rain still hung like a curtain around her. She shifted the basket to her hip as she used her free hand to brush her dark hair over her shoulder in a vain attempt to keep it from plastering to her face and neck. Most of the others had emerged from their tents as well, milling about and returning to whatever tasks they had been busying themselves with before the skies opened up. Anna made her way back over to the clothesline between Lori's tent and Jacqui's.

"You can't at least think about it?"

Lori's voice drifted through the air. It was clear she was trying to keep her voice low but it became more audible as Anna drew closer.

"I have thought about it," Shane replied, his voice equally hushed and tinged with a note of long-suffering. "It's not like I want to just leave our people out there but I have to do what's best for the group. I need you to back me up on this."

As Anna reached the clothesline she realized she could see them around the side of the tent. Shane's hands wore a comforting path up and down the backs of Lori's arms and Anna found herself doing a double-take. She knew Shane and Lori were close. Given their shared history and the fact that Shane had been best friends with Lori's husband, how could they not be? Lori had mentioned to her how Shane had been the one to get them out of King County and lead them to the supposed safe zone in Atlanta, but she never once gave any inclination that there was something more between them.

"I know," Lori practically whispered as she lifted one of her hands and let it rest on Shane's cheek. He leaned into her touch with a familiarity that was undeniable. "And I will. Always."

Lori rocked onto her tiptoes as she moved to press her lips to Shane's. A sudden burst of heat flamed in Anna's cheeks as she realized she was intruding on a very private moment. She spun on her heel in an attempt to give them their privacy and the muddied ground shifted beneath her feet. She felt her shoes lose their traction as she lurched forward, letting out a small noise of surprise as the basket of clothes went toppling from her hands. She reached out in a futile hope of catching them but the basket landed upside down just outside of her reach. Anna swore under her breath as she bent down to collect the soiled laundry, her face flushed and burning with red hot embarrassment.

"Anna!" Lori cried, her boots sloshing in the mud as she made her way over to her. "Let me help you."

Anna wanted to thank her but could only nod instead, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. They piled the laundry into the basket together in silence, neither one saying anything until every mud stained article had been collected. Anna grasped the basket and the two of them stood at once; it was only then that she let her eyes flicker up to meet Lori's. When she did, she found that the other woman's face was just as red as hers and Shane was nowhere to be seen. Lori blinked owlishly at her for a moment, looking very much like a deer caught in the sight of oncoming headlights, too terrified to dive out of the way.

"Why don't we go down to the lake?" She suggested finally, tearing her eyes away from Anna's and gesturing to the water. "I'll help you rewash these."

Anna nodded again and the two began the trek across camp, falling into an uneasy silence yet again. She wondered if she should say something, apologize at the very least. Whatever relationship Shane and Lori had – whether platonic or otherwise – was none of her business and she had borne witness to something not meant for her to see. They reached the water's edge and Anna sucked in a breath to try and quiet her nerves.

"Lori," she began as she dipped one of Jim's shirts into the water. "I'm s-"

"No, Anna please," Lori shook her head dismissively as the color flooded back to her cheeks. She dunked a pair of tattered blue jeans into the water roughly, clearly flustered. "There's no need for you to apologize. I just- I'm a little embarrassed and I feel like I need to explain myself."

"You don't," Anna assured her with a shake of her head. "Honestly, it's none of my business and I don't-"

"He was Rick's best friend," Lori cut across her, the words coming out in a rush and Anna had a feeling she hadn't heard a word she'd said. "And I swear there wasn't anything going on before, not even close. But my husband is gone and Shane takes care of us and Carl needs-"

"Lori," Anna tried again. She tossed the clean shirt back into the basket and paused to look up at her, waiting until Lori met her eyes. "You don't owe me an explanation."

"I know," she admitted, looking down at the jeans in her hands as if they held the answer to a question she wasn't asking. She tossed them into the basket with a sigh and started on another pair. "I think maybe I feel like I owe myself one."

Anna opened her mouth to respond but decided against it, opting instead to leave Lori with her thoughts. They made quick work of the laundry, rinsing out the evidence of Anna's mishap as the water turned brown and murky around them. Anna found herself wishing she could wash the entire day away just as easily.

"I loved him," Lori whispered finally, so faintly that Anna wasn't even sure she heard her. When she looked up, she saw Lori's hand clasped around her necklace, her slim fingers parsing out a plain silver band that hung there.

"My husband," she clarified. "Rick and I had our struggles but god, did I love him."

For a moment Anna watched Lori as she held her husband's wedding ring between her fingers, her thumb wearing a tiny path back and forth over the smooth inside of the band. As Anna worked on her final piece of clothing, she found herself contemplating Lori's situation. Though she knew what it felt like to lose someone she loved, there was no mistaking that they were two different things entirely. The last person Anna could say she loved was her high school boyfriend, a tall, brown eyed boy with dark hair to match. Anna swore on her life that he was the handsomest guy she had ever seen and it still brought back warm feelings of nostalgia when she thought back to Friday night football games and warm Sunday afternoons spent lounging in the bed of his old pickup truck. They grew apart after graduation as so many high school sweethearts tended to do, with her moving out of state for college and he opting to stay in Haddock to work at the general store his family owned. He was married with twins the last Anna heard and it brought a smile to her face when she thought of it.

Even still, she knew, what she felt for him had been the flight and fancy of a first love, something pure and innocent and riddled with butterflies and promises they were so sure they would keep. She dated off and on throughout undergrad and medical school but never let herself pursue anything serious, always choosing instead to focus on her career; it was something Alex loved to give her slack for. Anna never really bothered to think about getting married or starting a family; it was always something she figured would come later down the road, if it came at all. Looking back, it was almost laughable to think of all the things she had put off under the delusion that she had time. Love and marriage weren't even blips on her radar at the end of the world and it was something she was almost grateful for. Losing her sister had been hard enough; she couldn't imagine losing a husband too.

Anna tossed the worn button up into the clean basket and gave Lori a small smile. "Come on, let's head back. They should be starting on supper soon."

Lori nodded and took up the basket, propping it against her hip as they made their way back toward camp. They could see Carl and Shane deep in conversation near Lori's tent and her son sent her an enthusiastic wave when he caught sight of her.

"Anna," Lori begin, hesitancy tinging her voice yet again. "If you wouldn't mind not mentioning anything to anyone…"

Anna gave her a dismissive wave. "Don't worry about it. I won't say anything – promise."

Lori opened her mouth to respond but something cut her off. In the distance they could hear a shrill wail echoing off the hills, something that sounded painfully familiar but that Anna couldn't quite place.

"Is that an alarm?" Lori wondered aloud. They shared a concerned glance before sprinting the rest of the way to camp. Lori tossed the basket of clothes aside as Carl ran to her, wrapping his arms around her middle.

"Talk to me, Dale!" Shane shouted from his place at the bottom of the RV.

"I can't tell yet," Dale replied from behind his binoculars as he frantically searched for the source of the noise that was growing louder and louder the closer it got.

"Is it them?" Amy cried as she bolted from her tent, practically levelling Shane to the ground in her haste to get to the RV. "Are they back?"

Anna stood frozen to the spot as she waited for an answer, a thousand possibilities running through her mind all at once, each one as awful as the last. Initially her mind jumped to what the noise would mean for them, to all the walkers it could bring down on their little camp. There was no logical explanation she could think of for the noise so her mind leapt to the illogical, to the group she was with before Glenn and T-Dog found her. A paralyzing fear crept through her, spindly fingers dancing up her spine and causing goosebumps to rise on her arms. What if they found her?

 _Stop_ , she told herself with a firm shake of her head. _Don't be ridiculous._

Dale finally seemed to latch onto the source of the noise, following it as it drew ever closer to the camp. The violent screeching grew so loud it was almost deafening, nearly drowning out Dale's voice when he spoke again. "Well, I'll be damned."

"What is it?" Amy insisted.

He smirked, looking halfway between bemused and disbelieving. "Stolen car's my guess."

Amy said something else in response but Anna couldn't even hear what it was. Her brows knit together in confusion as a bright red sports car pulled up to camp, crunching the rocks beneath its tires. She dreaded the thought of who could be so ruthless as to ring such an obvious dinner bell. Surely it had to be someone with malintent; no idiot would drive a car with the alarm blaring otherwise. Anna held her breath as the door opened and a familiar, smiling face popped out.

"Hey," Glenn raised his hand in greeting, his grin nearly splitting his face in half.

"Holy crap," Dale breathed as he made his way down the RV's ladder. "Turn that damn thing off!"

"Oh," Glenn blushed. "I don't actually know how."

"Pop the hood!" Shane shouted, struggling to be heard over the sound of the car's alarm. Glenn reached back into the car to oblige his request but had to worm his way around Amy to do so, as she was all but on top of him. A rapid-fire series of questions about Andrea poured from her mouth, mingling with Shane's voice and the incessant blare of the car alarm.

"Yes!" Glenn cried, rounding on her as Shane yanked the wire to disconnect the car's battery. "She's okay!"

"Is she coming back? Why isn't she with you? Where is she? She's okay?"

"Yes!" Glenn repeated, grabbing her by the shoulders to steady her. "She's fine; everyone is. Well, Merle not so much but-"

"Are you crazy?" Shane gave him a rough shove, causing him to stumble backward a step. "What were you thinking driving this wailing bastard up here? Were you trying to draw every walker for miles?"

Anna missed the remainder of their exchange as a box truck came rumbling up the path, stopping just behind the sports car. She could see the anticipation wracking Amy's body as she held her breath, waiting for her sister to step out of the truck. When she did, Amy let out a high pitched cry as she rushed over to her sister, wrapping her arms around her tightly.

"You scared the shit out of me," Anna heard her sob into Andrea's hair. The corners of Anna's mouth turned upward even as the floor of her chest gave way, sending her heart plummeting downward. Her emotions seemed to war within her, half of her overjoyed that Amy and Andrea were reunited and the other half bitterly jealous that she didn't get to experience the same reunion with her own sister. The familiar ache reverberated behind her breastbone, spreading throughout her body like a cancer. Angry tears pressed at the dams of her eyes and she had to turn away to keep them from spilling over.

She heard shouts of joy from Morales' children as they rushed to embrace him, his wife not far behind. From the corner of her eye Anna could see Lori crouched in front of Carl, whispering to him in hushed tones as she used her thumbs to wipe stray tears from his cheeks. Anna's heart broke all over again, knowing he was feeling the exact same things that she was.

A hand on her back caused her to turn around and when she did, she was greeted by Amy. Tears rolled freely down her splotchy cheeks and she smiled through them, dragging Andrea behind her as she grasped Anna's arm and pulled her close.

"You're the only reason I didn't go totally insane," she mumbled against her and Anna didn't even bother to fight her smile. Andrea's hand found hers and gave it a squeeze, her eyes locking firmly onto Anna's as she mouthed a thank you. Behind her, Anna heard Shane asking Morales how they were able to get out of the department store.

"New guy got us out."

"New guy?" Shane repeated and Morales nodded with a smirk.

"Yeah, crazy _vato_ just got into town apparently. He's a cop like you," he turned back toward the truck and gave a shout. "Hey, helicopter boy! Come say hello!"

Anna watched as a man in an officer's uniform came around the side of the truck, the badge on his chest glinting brightly as it caught the light of the late afternoon sun. His brown hair was oddly neat considering the circumstances and the ghost of five o'clock shadow danced across his jaw. When he looked up his eyes locked onto Shane's, widening in recognition. From beside her came a small voice, weary with disbelief as a single word rang out. The series of happy reunions came to a screeching halt as if someone had pressed the pause button on the entire camp, every pair of eyes locked on this strange man who stood before them.

"Dad?"

* * *

 **A/N:** So, this one was was basically a mini-novel (25 pages in Word!) but hopefully the length makes up for the amount of time it took to update? I'm super curious to see what you all think of Daryl and Anna's interactions. The squirrel scene in particular was one of the first scenes I planned for this story and it was a lot of fun to write. Surprisingly, so was Merle!

I do want to go ahead and mention something that I've been a little worried about though. While this story does follow the plot of the show very closely, there will be some notable differences - primarily that I will not be including every single scene from the series. I personally am not a fan of fics that take too much dialogue directly from the episodes or that are essentially a re-write of the show with an extra character thrown in, so that is something I am trying very hard to stay away from. You'll definitely see some memorable dialogue and I will absolutely be holding true to the series, I just want to give it a fresh spin. And who knows, maybe there will be some major changes later on ;) I just wanted to make all of you aware before we get much further down the road, as I have perused existing stories a bit and have found that some people do prefer a fic that adheres very, very closely to the series.

As always, I cannot thank you guys enough for your reviews, favorites and follows. The response I have received thus far is more than I could have hoped for at such an early stage and I am beyond grateful to all of you! A special thanks of course to my amazing friend and beta-adjacent **BouncingKappa** , who is never afraid to gently and tactfully tell me when something is trash and who talks me off a ledge practically daily, and to **BravoZver** , who spent the better part of Saturday helping me figure out the logistics of a major plot point for season two and who fangirls with me over Alex.


	4. Grey

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize it, I don't own it.

* * *

The air at camp the morning following Rick's unexpected arrival was the lightest it had been in a long time. Anna slept later than she was used to and woke feeling well-rested for the first time in quite a while. When she emerged from her tent, she stepped into a scene that felt as though it was plucked directly from a movie. Morales' wife Miranda was sipping her instant coffee around what remained of that morning's fire, watching fondly as their children played nearby. Carol busied herself with the ironing while Lori, Amy and Andrea hung the latest batch of clean laundry up to dry and Shane unloaded that day's water delivery from his Jeep. Even the sun seemed to be giving them a reprieve that morning, bathing it all in a pale yellow glow from behind the trees instead of its usual burning rays. There was an unspoken calmness that settled over the camp as lingering waves of relief continued to wash over them at the knowledge that their people had made it back safely, something that was only furthered by the Grimes family reunion.

The only person who didn't seem to be basking in the previous day's afterglow was Glenn. He stood off to the side as Dale, Jim and Morales stripped his beloved Challenger down, setting aside the parts they thought could be useful to them later. He sported a pained expression as he watched them work and Anna almost laughed when she heard him mutter "vultures" at them under his breath.

Rick made his way over to Lori as Anna moved to head in that direction as well and she saw Amy and Andrea exchange knowing looks. Amy nudged her sister as she wagged her eyebrows exaggeratedly in their direction. Both sisters waved to Anna as she drew closer, causing Lori and Rick to turn their attention to her as well.

"Morning, Doctor," Rick greeted with a nod as she came up beside him.

"Officer," she replied with a smirk. "How many times do I have to tell you to just call me Anna?"

"You'll be singing that song until the cows come home," Lori rolled her eyes with a look of long-suffering, though the corner of her mouth pulled upward in a smile. "This one's polite and proper to a fault."

"I'll work on it," Rick promised.

"Sure you will," Anna teased. "How's that wound feeling today?"

Rick lifted up the hem of his plain white t-shirt to reveal the fresh bandage she'd applied to his gunshot wound the previous day. Anna had been surprised to find that it was healing much better than she expected, all things considered. Whoever had cleaned and bandaged it after Rick left the hospital had done a pretty decent job. She did notice a series of microtears in the new flesh that stretched itself over the wound - something she attributed to the physical exertion from the day prior - but as long as he took things relatively easy and didn't engage in too much heavy lifting, she really didn't see any cause for concern.

"Couldn't complain even if I wanted to," Rick grinned at her as he dropped the hem of his shirt back down. "Barely even feel it anymore."

"Don't go getting cocky," Anna warned him good-naturedly. "If you push yourself too far you run the risk of reopening it and that's the last thing you need."

"I won't," he assured her as he raised his three fingers in salute. "Scout's honor."

Anna intended to respond but a shrill, high pitched scream cut her off followed by Carl's unmistakable shouts for Lori. He bolted through the trees in a heartbeat, flying immediately to Lori and wrapping his arms tightly around her. Sophia and Jacqui were close behind, the former making a beeline for her own mother. Jacqui held a trembling hand over her heart and her eyes were wide, looking almost wild and betraying just how shaken she truly was. From the corner of Anna's eye she saw Morales and Glenn rushing off into the woods with Jim and Dale close behind, all four sporting a variety of makeshift weapons. Rick spun on his heel to follow them, catching a shovel Shane tossed to him as they went. Andrea and Amy exchanged a look before heading off after them.

"Come on," Lori murmured to Carl as she wrapped a protective arm around his shoulders.

His small hands were trembling as he cast an anxious glance over his shoulder toward the trees. Lori steered him toward the RV where Carol, Sophia and the Moraleses had already congregated, fearful eyes fixed on the trees where half their group had disappeared. Anna and Jacqui were right behind them and Anna could see Ed perched on top of the RV, rifle in hand and trained on the same spot as everyone's gaze. Lori ushered Carl into the RV as the other children followed suit, all of them holding their breath as they waited to see what new terror might emerge. Anna's pulse pounded sharply against her throat as her overeager mind already began churning out possibilities.

"Son of a bitch!" The rough voice rang out clearly through the trees, a southern drawl Anna was growing all too familiar with lately. "That's my deer!"

She let out the breath she was holding with a sigh, not knowing whether she should roll her eyes or bask in the relief that their apparent threat was nothing more than an angry Dixon. Fearsome though that may be, it was still nothing compared to an army of walkers – or, if Anna's past experience was any indication, the actual Army. Amy and Andrea stepped into the clearing, each of their faces painted with matching looks of disgust as they made their way over to the RV.

"Everything okay?" Lori asked, now more confused than concerned. Andrea nodded.

"Yeah, just Dixon. There was a walker but they took care of it."

"A walker?" Carol repeated, her soft voice tinged with alarm. "This far from the city?"

Andrea opened her mouth to respond but Daryl's shout for Merle cut her off. Lori swore under her breath at the mention of the elder Dixon and Anna knew she was dreading the inevitable recount of what happened in Atlanta. Daryl stomped past them as he made his way to the middle of camp, a series of squirrels strung up around his neck like a medal of honor. The corners of Anna's mouth reached downward. Were there no rabbits in these woods?

"Merle!" He shouted again. "Get your ugly ass out here; got us some squirrel!"

"Daryl, slow up a bit," Shane cautioned as the rest of the men came up behind them, an assortment of bloodied weapons still in their hands. "I need to talk to you."

Daryl rounded on him without bothering to hide his annoyance but said nothing. Shane cleared his throat and Anna noticed the way he kept his shoulders squared, his body loose and yet ready to spring into action given the need – he was every bit an officer, even though law and order seemed to be things of the past.

"There was a problem in Atlanta."

Daryl's demeanor shifted in an instant. Something akin to fear or sadness passed over his features as worry flashed in his eyes. It was gone as quickly as it came, replaced instead with a stony mask. He took a step toward Shane as his hand flew to his mouth so he could catch his thumbnail between his teeth, something that was clearly a nervous habit. He tugged roughly on the nail's edge as he searched Shane's face for any indication of what was to come. "He dead?"

"We're not sure-"

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl's eyes narrowed into slits as his visage gave way. He jabbed a finger in Shane's direction even as his gaze wandered across every face he could see. "One of you better tell me what the hell happened to my brother or I swear to God-"

"Alright," Rick cut across him, stepping out from behind Morales. "There's no easy way to go about this so I'll just say it."

"Who the hell are you?" Daryl snapped, his enraged attention shifting.

"Rick Grimes."

"Okay, _Rick Grimes,_ " Daryl spat as though the name left a bitter taste in his mouth. "You got something you wanna tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all," Rick took a few steps closer as he spoke, coming up to stand beside Shane. "I handcuffed him to a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

Anna practically winced at his words. There was no possible way this conversation was going to end any way other than bloody. Could they not at least have been a little more tactful in the delivery? Wild anger flashed in Daryl's eyes as he regarded the other man for a moment before spinning to face the rest of the group who had gathered by the RV. His eyes flickered from face to face, seeming to search for an indication of the truth of Rick's words.

"Hold on," he grumbled as he spun back around. "Let me process this. You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you _left him there_?"

Daryl's voice devolved into a frantic shout. Half a second flashed by before he lunged at Rick, fury blazing in his eyes. Anna could hardly say she was surprised. Every single person at camp knew that the Dixons weren't exactly the most understanding of men. She found it difficult to believe that anyone had imagined this going in any other direction.

Rick sidestepped Daryl at the same time as Shane checked him with his shoulder, sending him sprawling to the ground. Daryl's anger only seemed to intensify and he drew his hunting knife from his belt, eyes trained on Rick. Anna heard Shane warn Rick to watch the knife as Jacqui gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in stunned surprise.

"Get in," came Lori's frantic murmur as she ushered Carol and Jacqui into the RV with Amy close behind. Anna's eyes remained trained on the scene before her as she stood rooted to the spot, watching it all play out as though on a television screen. Daryl moved to lunge for Rick again but Shane was quicker, one arm snaking its way around Daryl's neck and dragging him to the ground. Shane's grip tightened and Anna could see Daryl's face rapidly turning red, both from his rage and his frenzied gasps for air.

"Choke hold's illegal," Daryl grunted as he struggled fruitlessly in Shane's grasp.

"Yeah," Shane replied nonchalantly. "File a complaint."

Lori tugged at Anna's arm but she waved her off, too engrossed in what was happening before her to look away. Daryl's attempts to free himself grew weaker as he gasped hoarsely. Rick crouched in front of him but Anna hardly even heard what he was saying, her mind focused only on Shane and the reflexive need to ensure that Daryl didn't lose consciousness. She had no love for Daryl Dixon but she wasn't about to deal with treating the after effects of a prolonged chokehold. Somewhere at the back of her mind she knew Shane had total control of the situation and she saw his grip loosen just a fraction, allowing Daryl to take in enough air to croak out a reply to Rick's question. Shane let him go and he fell forward, catching himself and rolling onto all fours as he coughed.

"Look," Rick continued, forcing Daryl to look at him. "What I did was not on a whim; your brother does not play well with others."

Daryl sent him a scathing look and moved to respond but T-Dog cut him off, coming up the far side of camp with a pile of firewood in his arms.

"It's not Rick's fault," he insisted. "I had the key and I dropped it."

Daryl sent him a look of such utter disbelief that it was nearly comical. "You couldn't pick it up?"

T-Dog glared at him. "I dropped it down a drain."

Daryl threw his hand up in dismissal before pushing himself to his feet. He began to pace back and forth, one hand fisted in his short hair as he wore a path in the dirt. She would never have admitted it aloud but there was a part of Anna that felt for him. Though she was only one on the long list of people at camp who despised Merle Dixon, he was still Daryl's brother and the only person he really seemed to give a damn about other than himself. Over the top as it may have been, she couldn't fault him for his rage.

"If that's supposed to make me feel better," Daryl spat as he rounded on T-Dog, one accusatory finger jabbing in his direction. "It don't."

T-Dog rolled his eyes. "Yeah? Well maybe this will: I chained the door to the roof with a padlock so the geeks couldn't get at him." He flicked his eyes around the group as he waited for a response. When none came, he sighed. "Look, it's gotta count for something."

Daryl regarded him for a moment, his features screwed up in a mask of contempt. When he spoke again it was with another dismissive wave. "To hell with all y'all. Just tell me where he's at so I can go get him."

Rick's eyes shot from T-Dog to Shane, the look on his face caught somewhere between determined and apologetic. The action seemed to convey a hundred unspoken words and Shane shook his head in disbelief before turning away from his friend. Rick opened his mouth to respond to Daryl but Lori got there first, her words coming out in a scoff and her eyes laser focused on her husband.

"He'll show you, ain't that right?"

Anna watched the exchange wordlessly, her gaze darting back and forth between the two. Rick's eyes softened but his determination never wavered and she could hear Lori give a long-suffering sigh from beside her. It was painfully obvious that this was a discussion they'd already had, as well as that Rick had already made his decision with which Lori vehemently disagreed.

Rick gave a nod and Lori huffed a sharp breath of dissent, throwing her hand up at him as she stomped past on the way back to their tent. Daryl's eyes fixed on Rick for a moment before he scoffed and shook his head.

"Fine," he grunted. "We leave in twenty."

He shoved past T-Dog on his way back to his tent, muttering a string of colorful swears under his breath as he went. Shane and Rick shared another look before the latter tore his eyes away and spun on his heel to hurry after his wife. There was a moment of tense silence as no one was entirely sure how to proceed before Anna felt Andrea's hand on her shoulder.

"Come on," she said simply. "Let's go finish up that laundry."

* * *

Anna's mind seemed to be running at a hundred miles an hour. She was vaguely aware of Amy chattering away next to her but she had no clue what she was saying, her thoughts having made a home elsewhere. Visions of Merle handcuffed on a roof for nearly a full twenty-four hours – exposed to the blistering Georgia sun – kept running through her head as if on a reel of film that was set to play over and over. There was a part of her that screamed that she shouldn't care one bit about Merle Dixon but she couldn't bring herself to listen. How she felt about him was irrelevant; all that mattered to her was that he was a person and he was going to need serious medical attention, something no one was sufficiently equipped to provide except for her.

"Anna?" Amy's voice snapped her back to the present. "Were you listening?"

"What? Yeah," she replied with a shrug. "Of course I was."

"You sure about that?" Andrea teased as she clipped a damp t-shirt onto the line. "Because you've been holding that same pair of jeans for about ten minutes."

Anna's eyes flickered down to her hands as a faint blush colored her cheeks. She clipped the jeans onto the clothesline hastily.

"You okay?" Andrea asked with a raised brow. "You seem like you're somewhere else."

"Yeah, I kind of am," Anna replied with a sigh. In her peripheral vision she could see Daryl making his way across camp to the box truck near where Rick and Shane stood, seemingly in a heated discussion. Both Glenn and T-Dog had agreed to accompany Rick and Daryl on the rescue mission and Shane was – unsurprisingly – less than pleased about the whole ordeal. Anna turned so she could get a better look at them and saw Shane throw his hands up in defeat as he turned away from his friend.

"Actually, I'll be right back."

Anna's feet seemed to move of their own accord as she made her way over to where Rick and Shane stood, both Amy and Andrea calling after her as she went. The two men halted their conversation as she approached and Rick opened his mouth to greet her but she cut him off.

"I'm going with you."

Rick took a step backward as Shane's eyes rolled so far back into his head that Anna was certain he could see the back of his own skull. She waited for a response but it was Daryl who got there first as he turned to face her from his place at the truck.

"Yeah, that's exactly what we need," he scoffed. "Meredith-fucking-Grey getting in our way."

Anna's blood simmered in her veins. Why was this man so intent on snubbing her? She had given him no reason to hate her and yet that was exactly what he seemed keen to do, despite her repeated attempts to be nice to him. Shocks of red flashed across her vision as she spun to face him.

"Would you just fuck off?" She snapped, the agitation wearing on her voice and driving her over the edge. "Do you see anyone else chomping at the bit to go on this suicide mission to save your brother? Maybe try showing some goddamn gratitude instead of being a dick to everyone who tries to help you."

Daryl raised a finger at her as he opened his mouth to respond but she didn't give him a chance, immediately turning her attention back to Rick.

"It's been, what, eighteenish hours since you handcuffed Merle on that roof? That's eighteen hours of being exposed to the elements – direct sunlight, extreme heat, humidity – with no water, not to mention the fact that he was coked out of his mind when he left here. So you're looking at a cocktail of sun poisoning, dehydration, withdrawal and God knows what else. He's going to need medical treatment and you're going to need someone who knows what they're doing."

"No," Shane shut her down immediately. "Absolutely not. We cannot risk our only doctor on account of a douchebag like Merle-fucking-Dixon."

"Hey," Daryl cautioned as the anger rose in his throat again. "Watch your mouth."

"I did; douchebag is what I meant," he snapped before turning back to Anna. "There ain't no way in hell I'm letting you go out there on account of that asshole."

"Shane," Anna began, trying to keep her voice even and her words tactful even though all she wanted to do was bite his head off. "I understand what you're saying but I'm not asking your permission."

Shane's eyebrows disappeared underneath his dark hair as he regarded her, his expression caught halfway between anger and disbelief. Anna instinctively wanted to shrink under his gaze but fought against it, willing herself to look him in the eye and stand her ground. When the tense silence was finally broken, it was by Rick.

"Look, Anna," he began, sounding very much like an exhausted parent. "I understand where you're coming from but Shane's right. What you bring to the table is invaluable – we can't risk losing you. When we get back with Merle I promise we'll bring him straight to you."

"But I-"

"No 'but's," Shane cut across her and this time he made no attempt to maintain the evenness of his tone. "You're staying here and that's final."

Anna gaped at him as he turned his back to her and walked away, leaving her open-mouthed and with an angry blush on her cheeks. She felt like a scolded child, as though she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar and given a sharp smack with the back of a wooden spoon. She said nothing as she turned on her heel and all but stomped her way back to the RV, throwing the door open with a reverberating _bang_. Her already simmering blood turned into a rolling boil as she snatched her pack off the bench seat and yanked it open, rummaging through the supplies that were already in there to ensure she had everything she needed.

The corners of her lips tugged downward into a frown as she worked, Shane's words replaying in her ears over and over. The logical part of her understood his unwillingness to risk her life but it did little to snuff the fire of rage that burned in her belly at being treated like a child. Truthfully, she found herself a little hurt that Shane's rejection stemmed from a fear of losing the camp's doctor as opposed to the simple thought of losing one of their own. It dug up the feelings from her first night at camp when she wondered if they only wanted her to stay because of her medical experience. Had that been the case all along? Were they really only keeping her around because they wanted Dr. Mason and not just plain old Anna?

She shook her head to rid herself of the thoughts; there was no sense dwelling on them now. Satisfied that she had everything she needed, Anna stepped out of the RV and made her way back over to the truck. Glenn was already sitting behind the wheel with T-Dog beside him and Daryl sat under the raised door at the back of the truck, his legs dangling over the side as he waited impatiently for Rick to join them. He caught sight of Anna as she came up beside him and she didn't miss the way his dark eyes rolled upward at her arrival.

"Look," she sighed, her annoyance giving way to her lack of desire to fight with him any longer. "Since apparently I'm not going with you, I brought you a few things you'll need to treat your brother's most likely injuries."

Daryl quirked an eyebrow at her but said nothing, which was all the encouragement Anna needed from him to continue. She swung her pack off her shoulder and set it on the truck bed next to him, plunging her hand inside and pulling out each item as she listed them off.

"The biggest thing you're going to need to worry about is sun poisoning and dehydration. The sunburn itself can probably wait until he gets back here for me to take a look at it but if he has hives or blisters or any kind of open sore, make sure you apply a few of these-" she held up a series of individually wrapped gauze pads, "-to the area. Dampen them first; it'll help it heal faster."

She rummaged further into the bag and produced a small bottle of ibuprofen. "These will help with the swelling but don't let him take too many. He's bound to be dehydrated so make sure he gets plenty of water; just don't let him drink it too quickly or he'll just pee it all out."

Anna let her eyes flicker up to his face for a moment as she paused and found that he was listening to her intently, something that caught her just a little off guard. Her gaze latched onto his for a second too long and she cleared her throat before continuing.

"The, uh, the cuffs…" she drew out a tube of triple antibiotic ointment and a roll of self-adhesive gauze. "The cuffs have probably rubbed quite a bit – more so if he was struggling against them, which I assume he was – so use these for the wounds if you need to. Just don't wrap the gauze too tightly or it could cut off circulation. Lord knows I'm not trying to deal with an amputation today."

Satisfied that she had gone over all of the most important details, Anna shoved all of the supplies back into her pack and held it out to Daryl.

"It's probably easier for you to just take the whole thing. I put some extra supplies in there just in case you need them. If he's going through withdrawals then he's not thinking clearly and he might've done more harm to himself so just use your judgment on whatever else you think he needs."

Daryl took the pack from her outstretched hand and Anna rose her gaze to meet his again. A faint blush crept its way onto her cheeks and she raised a hand to scratch the back of her head nervously.

"And," she began, willing herself to look him in the face despite how badly she wanted to avert her eyes. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I mean, I meant what I said but there was definitely a better way to word it. So, I'm sorry."

Daryl blinked at her but said nothing and an awkward moment passed that seemed to last for much longer than it actually did. Anna cleared her throat again and gestured back toward the RV.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna go and, uh, just be sure to bring him straight to me whenever you guys get back."

A grimace washed over her features the second her back was to Daryl. Why did she seem to constantly forget every single one of her social graces when she was around him? She gave herself a sharp mental kick as she moved to make her way back to the RV.

"Hey," he called after her and she paused to glance at him over her shoulder. "Thanks."

Anna's mouth quirked into a half-grin and she nodded to him in acknowledgement. She turned and took a step toward the RV before spinning on her heel to face him again.

"Also," she added as an afterthought as her expression shifted to a true grin. "Meredith Grey ranks pretty low on my list of favorite _Grey's_ characters. I always kind of thought of myself as more of an Izzie Stevens."

Daryl scoffed as he threw his hand up in her general direction, but she didn't miss the slight upturn in his lips when he turned away to crawl toward the front of the truck and demand they get a move on. She shook her head as she headed back to the RV, the ghost of smile still playing across her face.

* * *

"Deep breath in."

The youngest of the Morales children did as he was asked and Anna flicked her wrist, the tip of the needle piercing the skin pinched between her fingers. She depressed the plunger and withdrew the needle in hardly more than the blink of an eye, flipping the safety cap closed and dropping the syringe into the shoebox they were using as a makeshift biohazard bin.

"All done," she declared as she smoothed a Band Aid over the pin prick wound on the back of the boy's arm. On Anna's first real day at camp, Miranda had approached her and asked if she would be willing to administer Louis' insulin injections.

"I've been doing it," she explained sheepishly. "But I just get so uncomfortable around needles and Juan isn't always able to help…"

She had been bringing Louis to see her twice a day ever since. Admittedly, Anna was glad to have something resembling a routine. If someone had tasked her with daily insulin injections two months ago she would have dismissed the notion, longing instead for the challenge and thrill that the ED brought her. Now she was grateful for something so mundane; it meant everyone at camp was safe.

"Not so bad, right _mijo_?" Miranda smiled down at her son and he replied with a shake of his head. "Come on; let's go see if we can convince your dad to take a break for some lunch."

Louis nodded enthusiastically and all but bolted out of the RV door with Miranda following close behind. She called out a thank you to Anna as the door swung shut behind her and Anna smiled. Seeing the children laughing and playing as if the world hadn't collapsed around them was a welcome reprieve from the chaos outside of camp. Truth be told, they were lucky to have found such a place. With its relatively close proximity to the city, high elevation and sustainable water source, the quarry camp was a rare gem in the current state of the world. Aside from the rogue walker earlier that day, they hadn't seen a single member of the infected anywhere near camp and they were far enough from the main road to not be seen so long as they kept their fires low. It truly was as ideal a location as any of them could have hoped for and they were lucky to have found it.

Or, more accurately in Anna's case, she was lucky they'd found her. She had fallen so easily into her place at camp that it almost felt as though she was meant to be with these people. Thinking back on her first few days at camp and how hesitant she had been to trust everyone felt almost foreign, as though she was reliving memories of someone else's life. It was odd to think of mornings that didn't involve instant coffee with Dale or a meal spent without listening to Amy's impassioned recount of the latest camp gossip. The cold fingers of guilt walked their way up her spine when she realized that there were times when she almost forgot that she hadn't been part of their little group of survivors since the beginning. Almost.

"Anna!" The RV door flew open as Jacqui burst inside. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on her brow and her chest heaved violently as she tried to catch her breath. "You need to come with me!"

"Are you okay?" Anna could feel her heartbeat quickening as she spun around to grab her makeshift bag. She'd given quite a bit of her supplies to Daryl but still had the secondary supplies that made up the RV's first aid kit. "What happened?"

Jacqui shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. "Just follow me; I'll tell you on the way."

The two exited the RV together and set a path toward the rear edge of camp. In the distance, Anna could see Morales and Dale helping what appeared to be a very bloody Ed Peletier into his tent as a distraught Carol trailed close behind. Anna swore under her breath.

"Was he bitten?"

Jacqui shook her head again. "It wasn't a walker; it was Shane."

"Shane?" Anna repeated, incredulous. "Shane attacked him?"

"More like put him in his place, though a little excessively. Ed started his usual 'me big tough man, you weak woman' bullshit down at the quarry while we were doing laundry. One thing led to another and he ended up slapping Carol. Then Shane came out of nowhere and laid into him like he was Anderson Silva or something."

The two reached Ed's tent just as Morales and Dale were exiting. Carol moved to rush inside but stopped when she saw Anna and Jacqui approaching.

"Oh Anna, thank God!" She ran over to grab Anna's arm, fresh tear tracks still shining on her cheeks but doing nothing to hide the angry bruise that was already beginning to form on her cheekbone. "I'm so glad you're here. Please, there has to be something you can do…"

"I'll certainly do my best."

Anna gave her what she hoped was a comforting smile as Morales held back the tent flap so the two women could enter. Carol let out another sob at the sight of her husband sprawled across the cot in front of them. His lips were swollen and bruised, fresh blood leaking from his split bottom lip. The entire left side of his face was already morphing into one large bruise, dark shades of blue and purple coloring nearly the entire surface of his skin. His left eye was all but swollen shut but Anna could barely see the bright red that stained the whites of his eye as he blinked up at her, exacerbated by the blood that dripped from a wound above his eyebrow. There was a large gash on the bridge of his likely broken nose and Anna was certain that if he opened his mouth, a number of teeth would be loose or missing.

"It's going to be okay, Ed," Carol murmured through her tears as she rushed to his side. "Anna's going to help you."

"No," Ed grumbled before Anna even had a chance to unzip the bag of medical supplies. He hacked a wet cough as he spoke. "Don't need no help."

Anna frowned, though she wasn't entirely surprised. It wasn't uncommon for patients – particularly male patients – to refuse treatment out of pride or embarrassment or any number of things. In her experience, explaining the necessity of treatment and the potential ramifications of neglecting it typically prompted the patient to come around.

"Ed, please," Carol pleaded. "Anna is a doctor; she can help."

"Mr. Peletier," Anna began carefully, feeling very much as though she was back in one of the old familiar rooms at Atlanta Medical Center instead of in a frayed tent near a random Georgia quarry. "I need to assess the extent of your injuries. Any one of those open wounds could easily turn septic and that ophthalmic trauma could have serious long-term effects on your vision. If you'd be more comfortable, we can have your wife step outsi-"

"I said no," Ed barked, the bite in his tone back in full force. "I don't need no help, definitely not from some know-it-all, Ivy League twat."

Carol spun to face Anna so quickly it was a wonder her neck didn't snap, a series of apologies pouring from her lips. Anna recoiled just a hair in surprise, one of her eyebrows raised as she considered the beaten man lying before her.

"Well," she said once Carol quieted, not bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice. "The University of Tennessee isn't Ivy League but thanks for the vote of confidence, I suppose."

She turned back to Carol. "The swelling should start to go down in the next day or two. His nose is probably broken but it can heal on its own. He definitely broke a blood vessel in that left eye but there's no telling what other orbital damage has been done. Blindness is a pretty good motivating factor so I guess just let me know if he starts having vision problems or if you notice anything unusual going on with those wounds and we can see if he'll have a change of heart about letting me check things out."

Anna paused as she met Carol's eyes. The bruise at the apex of her cheek was rapidly darkening, an angry and blatant reminder of the man her husband was.

"Or just let karma run its course," she added. "It's your choice."

Carol said nothing as Anna gathered her things and left the tent to where Jacqui, Dale and Morales were all waiting. Behind them, she could see Shane retreating to the RV.

"Well that sure was quick," Jacqui commented. "Were they just superficial injuries or…?"

Anna shook her head. "I dunno; he wouldn't let me look at him."

"There's a shock," Morales mumbled before adding _"pendejo"_ under his breath.

"Still, Shane really did a number on him," Dale added. His eyes were wide as they darted to the RV and then back again, doing little to hide his discomfort. "I know Ed Peletier isn't winning any popularity awards around here but I think what happened was a little excessive."

"You weren't there," Jacqui insisted as she wrapped her arms around herself, seeming to shudder at the memory. "Ed was out of control. He hit Carol and he threatened to hit Andrea. If you ask me, it's high time someone did something about that man."

Dale opened his mouth to respond and Anna took that as her cue to quietly slip away. They continued to bicker back and forth as she made her way back to the RV. She couldn't say she disagreed with Jacqui, though there was no denying that this was not the course of action Anna expected Shane to take. Not even a week ago he was telling her why he hadn't addressed the Ed issue and suddenly he was practicing his right hook on Ed's face? Shane had made a career out of keeping a level head in much more trying situations; there had to be something else going on.

The RV door creaked as Anna pushed it open and stepped inside. Shane glanced over to her from his place at the sink when she entered and her eyes immediately dropped to the bloodied tissue in his hand.

"Split the knuckle," he explained simply. "Damn thing won't stop bleeding."

"Let me take a look at it."

Anna gestured for him to move to the bench seat and he obliged wordlessly. She dropped the bag of supplies at her feet as she knelt in front of him, taking his hand in hers and examining his bloodied knuckles. The wound wasn't large, maybe three-quarters of an inch at most, but it was fairly deep.

"Looks like maybe the knuckle caught his tooth," she explained as she reached into the supply bag and pulled out a travel sewing kit and a small bottle of saline. She popped the top and used it to do a quick flush of the wound. "It could use a few sutures but nothing too bad."

Shane nodded and she got to work, sterilizing the needle the best she could with an old plastic Bic lighter before threading it and tying off the knot with relative ease. Anna had never considered herself particularly skilled in the domestic arts but she figured she had stitched up enough patients to make up for her inability to reattach a button or sew drapes for the apartment she and Alex shared.

Neither of them spoke as Anna worked and the silence that settled over them was a heavy one. Anna couldn't help but think back to the encounter she had witnessed between Shane and Lori the previous day. If the two of them had been involved for however long after Rick's supposed death, it certainly made his sudden and unexpected – although joyous – arrival all the more complicated. Was that the tipping point that drove Shane to unleash his inner Mike Tyson on Ed's face?

"So," she said finally, the word seeming to hang suspended in the thickness of the air. "I thought you said we weren't going 'Goodbye Earl'?"

Shane scoffed and Anna didn't need to look at him to know he was rolling his eyes. "Yeah well, plans changed. The man lays his wife out in front of God and everybody – what was I supposed to do? Turn a blind eye again and hope he didn't start turning on everyone else too?"

Anna could hear the growing frustration in his voice as she tied off the sutures and snipped the loose ends. "Besides, wasn't it you asking me to do something not that long ago? Now when I do you've got an issue with that too?"

"Woah, hold on," Anna's hands froze over the roll of gauze wrap she had plucked from the bag. "I'm not saying you were right or wrong, just that the whole thing kind of came out of left field. You had some really valid points for not intervening the last time we talked about it."

"Yeah and like I said," Shane drawled as Anna made quick work of wrapping the bandage around his hand. "Plans changed. Ed was a threat to the safety of this camp and now that threat's been neutralized. End of story."

He didn't give Anna a chance to respond before he rose to his feet, flexing his fingers once for good measure.

"Thanks for stitching me up, Doc," he called over his shoulder as he made his way back out of the RV and let the door slam shut behind him. Anna stared at the door for a moment before letting her head fall back against the worn bench seat with a sigh. What in the world was wrong with all of these men lately?

* * *

Despite the relative ease with which things seemed to be proceeding around camp when Anna woke up that morning, by midday things had done a virtual one-eighty. From Rick and the others going back for Merle to Shane turning Ed's face to hamburger meat, the day had been a proverbial rollercoaster that was only exacerbated by Jim's sudden and seemingly uncontrollable desire to dig a series of holes. Dale had found him at the hilltop, slaving away at his apparently very important task without so much as stopping for food or even water. It was as if he was operating on autopilot, finishing one hole and moving immediately to the next with hardly more than a breath in between. It was concerning to say the least, particularly when Shane decided to confront him and Jim became combative, first questioning what he considered to be Shane's self-appointed leadership and then going so far as to try and weaponize his shovel, swinging it wildly before he was disarmed.

It ended up being suggested that they tie Jim to a large tree to give him a chance to cool off and collect himself. Anna found nothing out of the ordinary when she examined him and the only logical diagnosis she could think of was sun stroke. Temperatures that afternoon were easily pushing triple digits and Jim had been working since sunrise with little water and practically no rest. Hallucinations or delusions during the heat of the day could certainly have explained his irrational behavior, though the whole thing was still admittedly unnerving.

Thankfully, some shade and hydration seemed to do the trick and Jim was back to his usual self by sunset. Amy and Andrea had utilized Dale's old canoe and fishing gear and came back to camp with over a dozen fish, a more than welcome reprieve from the usual squirrel. Morales had even built up the rock walls around the fire so they could keep the flames a little higher without risking being seen from the road.

As the sun set over the trees on the westernmost edge of camp, the mood had come full circle. Anna found herself situated between Andrea and Jacqui as the group gathered around the fire, passing around a plate piled high with fried fish and laughing as though the events from earlier that day were nothing more than a distant memory. Anna and Andrea passed a bottle of beer back and forth between the two of them as everyone ate their fill.

"I've got to ask you, man," Morales said to Dale as the chatter died down. "It's been driving me crazy. What's the deal with the watch?"

"I've wondered this myself," Jacqui added from her place beside Anna.

"What?" Dale asked as his brows disappeared beneath the wide brim of his hat.

"I see you every day," Morales continued. "Same time, winding that thing like a village priest saying Mass."

Andrea snorted her laughter through a bite of fish, nodding in agreement.

"What?" Dale repeated. "I'm missing the point."

"Unless I've misread the signs, the world seems to have ended," Jacqui explained good-naturedly. "Or at least hit a speed bump for a good long while."

"But there you are every day, winding that stupid watch."

"Ah," Dale realized, leaning back just a tad as he surveyed the group. "Time – it's important to keep track, isn't it? The days at least?"

His eyes flickered across the faces around him, the warm glow of the fire dancing across their features. The trees were silhouetted behind them, scarcely more than tall dark outlines against the starlit sky. The heat of the day had given way to a cool night's breeze that gently rustled the leaves as it blew through the surrounding woods.

"Well," Dale added upon seeing that he wasn't going to receive a response. "I like what the father said to his son when he gave him a watch that had been handed down through generations…"

Anna let her head fall to rest against Andrea's shoulder as Dale recited one of his many notes of wisdom. Regardless of the quote or the watch or the oddity of the day, it was nice to be able to sit around the fire and enjoy each other's company. Even Shane seemed to be in a marginally better mood, something the whole camp could be grateful for.

"You are so weird," Amy commented with a roll of her eyes as Dale ended his speech, though her lips curved upward into a smile.

"Hey, it's not me; it's Faulkner," Dale insisted as Amy set down her cup and stood, turning toward the RV. "Well, maybe my bad paraphrasing…"

"Where are you going?" Andrea asked as Amy stepped away.

"I have to pee," she called over her shoulder before muttering under her breath, "You try to be discrete around here, good lord."

Andrea laughed as Anna passed the nearly empty bottle of beer back to her.

"It's her birthday tomorrow," she whispered after she took a swig. "She'll be twenty-four; I can hardly believe it. It seems like yesterday my parents were telling me I was going to have a little sister."

Anna grinned at her. "I'm sure you took that well."

"I asked if we could just get a dog instead."

They shared a laugh before Shane called to them across the fire.

"Hey Doc, why don't you tell them that story you were telling me the other day? The one about the guy with the .25?" He turned to Morales and gave him a good-natured nudge. "Wait 'til you hear it; shit's wild."

"Y'all swapping war stories without us?" Jacqui teased as Anna took the final sip of beer from the bottle Andrea handed back to her. In the distance, she could hear Amy shouting over to them that the RV was out of toilet paper.

Anna opened her mouth to respond to Jacqui but a shrill cry cut her off. The world seemed to freeze on its axis as time slowed to a record-scratch stop. Anna's head shot over to the RV though somehow she seemed to know what she would see even before her eyes fell to rest on Amy, her fingers still curled around the RV door even as a walker sank its teeth into her outstretched arm. Andrea shouted for her sister as she hurried to her feet, tripping over herself as she fought to get to Amy. The breath hitched in Anna's throat and she felt Jacqui's fingers close around her arm.

The infected were descending on their camp from what felt like every angle. She could hear Shane's voice mingled in with blood curdling screams and blasts from his shotgun, all of it clouding Anna's head and disorienting her. Flashes of red danced in front of her eyes as chaos broke out and people ran in every direction. The knot in her stomach tightened as déjà vu washed over her and she suddenly felt herself transported back to another camp just outside the city. Screams and sobs and shots rang in her ears and through it all, Anna could hear her sister telling her to run.

Jacqui's hand was still tight around her arm, grounding her as they tried to make their way back to the RV where Shane was shouting for them to retreat to. She could see Jim and Morales armed with baseball bats, swinging madly to try and fend off the dead. There was a part of Anna's brain that shouted at her to pick up something – anything that could be used as a weapon – but it was as if her mind and her body were on two completely different wavelengths. Her brain yelled at her to fight while her body could do little more than propel herself forward, yearning for the safety the RV would provide.

They were nearly there when Anna felt the toe of her shoe collide with something solid in front of her, breaking Jacqui's hold on her arm as she went sprawling across the ground. She could hear the other woman call out for her but she had no time to try and place where her voice was coming from. She had barely rolled herself over when she caught sight of a walker advancing toward her, teeth gnashing wildly as its outstretched hands opened and closed. Anna scrambled to get to her feet but a shotgun blast stopped her short, sending her arms flying to cover her head out of instinct. When she opened her eyes, she saw the walker lying motionless at her feet.

"Anna!" Glenn shouted as he rushed over to her, extending one of his hands to help her up. The other held his shotgun, faint tendrils of smoke still rising from the barrel. "Are you okay?"

She nodded wordlessly to him, her tongue suddenly feeling like an anchor in her mouth. Her eyes darted frantically across the scene as she realized the sounds had suddenly come to an eerie halt, save for the children sobbing and Andrea's tearful murmurs to her sister. Bodies of both the infected and her fellow campers were strewn across the ground and Anna could see that one of them was what she had tripped over. Rick had Lori and Carl in his arms while Daryl and T-Dog still had their guns at the ready, surveying the perimeter in case there were any lingering walkers. A few feet away from her, Anna could see Jacqui standing next to a stunned Jim.

"Amy?" She heard Andrea wail, the desperation in her voice palpable. When she turned, Anna could see that Amy's chest had stilled. "Amy!"

Anna felt the bile rising in her throat as tears pricked the backs of her eyes like a thousand tiny needles. A dry sob escaped her and she turned away, directly into Glenn. He blinked down at her for a moment as tears threatened his own eyes, both of their chests heaving as they struggled to catch their breath. He let his shotgun fall to the ground as he reached his arms out to pull her close, sobbing into her hair as her own tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Her fingers curled into tight fists around the back of his shirt as they lamented the fact that their camp, the place they had both come to think of as home, wasn't safe anymore.

* * *

 **A/N** : This chapter gave me so much trouble for some reason and it's a huge relief to finally have it posted. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed and followed/favorited this story so far! We are getting closer and closer to some of my favorite Anna and Daryl moments and I'm so excited to see what you all think once we get there!

As always, a humongous thanks to my amazing friend and beta-adjacent **BouncingKappa** for her help with the first half of this chapter! If you are part of the Marvel fandom and haven't read _Songbirds and Bombshells_ yet, you're missing out!


	5. Birthdays

**Disclaimer:** If it's recognizable, it isn't mine.

* * *

Whatever lightness had fallen over camp the previous morning, it was gone by the time the sun rose the next day. No one seemed to sleep at all that night, too distraught and on edge to even think about closing their eyes. Anna spent most of the night following the walker infiltration sitting in silence around a low burning fire with Dale, Jim and Jacqui, none of them either daring to speak or even knowing what to say. Their casualties were numerous and the unspoken question lingered in the air: How could they have let this happen?

Admittedly, it was a wonder they had managed to go so long without an incident. With the infected drawn in large part to the city, the surrounding area remained relatively clear – until the previous night, at least. Though there was always someone keeping watch atop the RV and they'd hung a series of cans and bottles around the perimeter to forewarn them of any approaching threats, there was no denying that every single person in camp had let their guard down at least a fraction. Camp life had spoiled them all, had let them get comfortable enough to forget that the wolf was always at their door, howling and scratching and waiting to break it down. Forgetting, comfort – those were dangerous things. Those were what got people killed.

When the sun finally began to peek over the treetops on the eastern edge of camp, the group set to work. It was decided early on to bury the ones they lost and burn the rest and so they began the gut-wrenching task of separating their own from the monsters. The men tasked themselves with destroying the brains of the ones who had been bitten but not yet turned, something Anna certainly did not envy them for. Lori, Miranda and Carol kept the children occupied while the rest of them tended to the bodies of their former campers, carefully wrapping them before loading them into the back of Daryl's old pickup.

"We can't just leave Amy like that," Anna heard Shane mutter to the group that had congregated around him. He was a few feet away from where Jacqui and Anna were wrapping up the body of Mr. Bickling, an elderly man who kept mostly to himself but was always up for a game of backgammon, even though his set was missing a handful of pieces. "We need to deal with it, same as the others."

"He's right," Jacqui whispered to her as they tied off the tarp at Mr. Bickling's feet. "Lord knows Andrea's hurting but she has to let Amy go sooner rather than later."

Anna frowned but said nothing, grabbing her end of the body and helping Jacqui hoist him into the bed of the truck. It wasn't that she necessarily disagreed with Jacqui or Shane but she certainly couldn't fault Andrea for dealing with her grief in whatever way she knew how. It was easy to label as right or wrong when you were on the outside looking in, when it wasn't your loved one lost, but being the one to grieve was a different story entirely. Could Anna really say she would have handled it differently if it had been her own sister instead of Amy?

"I'm going to take a break real quick," she told Jacqui, already turning to make her way over to the fire.

Jacqui called out a response but Anna barely heard it. She plucked a clean mug from the tray next to Carol and filled it with instant coffee from the pot over the fire before making her way to where Andrea sat, her knees folded under her as she pushed Amy's hair back from her forehead.

"If you're here to tell me what I need to do," Andrea snapped without tearing her eyes from her sister. "Don't waste your breath."

"What if I brought coffee?" Anna replied as she knelt down and held the mug out to her.

Andrea regarded her from the corner of her eye for a moment but didn't bother taking the mug from her outstretched hand – not that Anna could say she blamed her. It was a fruitless gesture and Anna couldn't even say for certain why she'd offered it, knowing coffee was likely the furthest thing from Andrea's mind. For a heartbeat they sat in silence and when it was broken, it was by Andrea.

"I'm going to do it," she whispered, almost more to herself than to anyone else. "Just not yet."

"I know," Anna assured her. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to Andrea but she knew none of them would help to heal the gaping wound in her chest. "And if you need me, I'm here."

Andrea said nothing and Anna rocked back onto her heels as she stood to leave. Her heart felt as though it was made of glass, each step giving it a violent rattle as a new crack broke out somewhere on the surface. There was a dull ache that radiated down to her fingertips, a throbbing that started in her chest and grew just a little deeper every minute. Seeing Andrea and Amy brought back all the feelings of losing Alex that lingered just beneath the surface, always ready and waiting for something to drag them back up for air. She wiped roughly at her eyes even though no tears had fallen, willing herself to keep her composure. It was what Alex would have wanted.

A shout of surprise cut through Anna's thoughts like a knife, wrenching her back to the present. She honed in on Jacqui's frantic cries. "A walker got him! A walker bit Jim!"

Time seemed to come to a screeching halt as everyone stopped what they were doing. Shovels and pickaxes fell to the ground as everyone rushed to crowd around Jim, Anna among them. Jacqui backed away with wide eyes that did nothing to hide her terror.

"I'm okay," Jim insisted, though the pleading tone of his voice was unmistakable. "I'm okay."

Murmurs broke out amongst the group as Jim's eyes darted across their faces. His chest heaved as the sounds grew louder and the fear seemed to fill him up to the brim.

"Hey, easy…" Shane tried to reason as he approached, hands in front of him in a non-threatening display.

"Show it to us," Daryl demanded and Jim's dark eyes flew to his as the panic slowly crept up the back of his neck. He spun around and grabbed a discarded shovel, wielding it in front of him the same way he had done the previous day when confronted about his odd behavior. He had hardly more than a breath to react before T-Dog was grabbing him from behind. The shovel clattered to the ground and Daryl yanked up the hem of Jim's t-shirt. Just over his ribs was an angry wound, the telltale mark they'd all come to recognize as a kiss of death. Fresh blood still dripped from each individual tooth mark and the skin around it was already discolored and dying.

"I'm okay," Jim repeated and his words were a sharp tug on the frayed strings of Anna's heart. "I'm okay."

Shane ran a hand down his face as he cast a glance toward Rick, who sighed.

"Jim, why don't you come over here?" He suggested, gesturing to the back of the RV. "Take a seat in the shade and rest for a bit."

Jim blinked at him a moment before nodding and shuffling over to the RV, murmuring to himself as he went.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and be done with it," Daryl spat as soon as Jim was out of earshot. Shane rounded on him with a look of disbelief.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?"

"Hell yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it."

Shane opened his mouth to respond but Dale cut him off before he had a chance. "I hate to say it – and I never thought I would – but maybe Daryl's right."

Rick practically gaped at him. "Jim's not a monster, Dale. He's not some rabid dog."

"I'm not suggesting-"

"He's sick. He's a sick man," he turned to Anna and his eyes were pleading. "Is there anything you can do?"

"Man, she's a doctor not a damn miracle worker," Daryl snapped with a roll of his eyes.

Anna looked back and forth between the two of them for a moment, feeling very much like she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She understood Rick's position. Jim was their friend and he needed help but that wasn't to say that a large part of her didn't agree with Daryl as well. She didn't think she could ever condone driving a pickaxe through the skull of a living man for any reason other than self-defense but she wasn't entirely unconvinced that ending his suffering wasn't the best option.

"He's right," she sighed. "If we couldn't cure this when we had a hospital and all the medical technology on God's green earth then there's definitely not much I could do out here. I could try to make him more comfortable, treat the symptoms as best I can, but-"

"Well what if we could get him help? I heard the CDC was working on a cure. What if it's still up and running?"

"That's a stretch right there," Shane added.

Anna nodded. "I guess it's possible that the CDC could still be operational but I wouldn't call it plausible."

"Why?" Rick pressed, his voice bordering on desperate. "If there's any government left, any structure at all, then wouldn't they protect the CDC at all costs? I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection, rescue, possibly a cure-"

"Look man, I know you want all those things," Shane tried to reason. "I do too; we all do. But if they exist then they're at the army base – Fort Benning."

"Fort Benning?" Lori repeated with wide eyes. "That's a hundred miles in the opposite direction."

"Right, but it's away from the hot zone. If that place is operational then it'll be heavily armed – I'm talking guns, rations, manpower. We'd be safe there."

Rick shook his head. "The military were on the front lines of this thing; they got overrun. We've all seen that."

"They took over our hospital when things first started to get bad," Anna added, not bothering to hide the note of panic that colored her voice at the thought of facing the military again. "It turned into chaos; they were shooting anything that moved, infected or not."

"See?" Rick gestured to her with a sweep of his arm, his eyes wide and more than a little bit pleading. "And we all know what they did to the city, to all those innocent civilians trying to get to the supposed refugee center. The CDC is our best choice and Jim's only chance."

"Man, this is bullshit," Daryl scoffed before Shane had a chance to respond. His fingers opened and closed around the handle of the pickaxe in his hand. "Y'all go looking for aspirin if that's what you need to do but someone here needs to have some balls and take care of the damn problem."

The whole thing played out in hardly more than a heartbeat. Daryl spun on his heel as he raised his pickaxe, swinging it in a wide arc as he rounded on Jim. Shane rushed to position himself between them as Rick raised his revolver, drawing back the hammer as he placed the barrel against Daryl's head, his finger hovering over the trigger. When he spoke, every syllable was thick with the implication of his words.

"We don't kill the living."

"Funny," Daryl grumbled, dropping his pickaxe to the ground and turning to face Rick. "Coming from the man with a gun to my head."

Rick lowered his revolver and Daryl stormed off, muttering as he went. Lori stood beside Anna with her hand over her heart, both of their chests heaving as they struggled to process everything that was going on.

"We should get him somewhere safe," Rick said finally and Shane nodded as he moved to help Jim to his feet.

"I'll go with you," Anna offered, still willing her racing heart to slow to a normal pace. "I can clean and bandage that wound. It's not much but maybe it'll buy us some more time."

Rick nodded and they set off behind Shane and Jim, charting a course for the inside of the RV.

* * *

Anna spent the better part of the remainder of the afternoon in the RV tending to Jim. She cleaned and bandaged the bite wound the best she could but still the infection worsened. Anna wasn't foolish enough to think that she would be able to stop it but she did hope she could at least delay the progression a little. His fever had broken one hundred degrees only half an hour ago and a thick layer of sweat coated every inch of his skin. Anna didn't miss his incoherent mumbles or the seemingly absentminded requests he'd made and she knew Jim had begun experiencing hallucinations before he'd confessed it aloud. Thus far they were few and far between, though Anna knew they wouldn't stay that way for long. He was also drifting in and out of consciousness but for the moment, thankfully, he slept.

Anna let her head fall back against the wall behind her with a sigh. She was so on edge her hands practically shook, her heart pounding away wildly behind her breastbone even when she wasn't doing anything. It killed her to know that Jim, her patient and her friend, was suffering so intensely and there was virtually nothing she could do about it. She could dab away at his brow, keep his bite clean and dry, make sure he had a basin nearby for when the nausea hit – but for what? Even if she could slow the progression, that only meant delaying the inevitable. How many patients had she seen on life support well past their time, their families unable to let go? It may have been life but only on a technicality. It wasn't something Anna would have wished for anyone, least of all a friend.

"Hey," Glenn's voice came from the doorway and when Anna looked up she could see him peeking his head in. "How's he doing?"

"Not great," she replied with a frown. "He's having some hallucinations and his temp keeps rising. I wish I had a stethoscope or BP cuff so I could check his vitals properly but for now at least he seems relatively stable."

Glenn nodded solemnly as he stepped fully into the room.

"Why don't you go outside and get some air?" He offered. "You've been in here half the day. I can sit with him for a while."

Anna tried not to seem too eager but she practically jumped to her feet at the suggestion. "You're sure?" She asked a bit anxiously, itching to stretch her legs.

"Yeah, go on," Glenn waved her off with a grin. "I'll yell for you if anything happens."

"You're the best," she called as she worked her way up the tiny hallway and out the RV door. Behind her, she could have sworn she heard Glenn say, "Yeah, I know."

The warm evening air was a welcome kiss to her skin when she stepped out into the golden glow. Lori, Carol and the children had congregated around the small fire along with a few others and they passed around a can of baked beans while T-Dog worked on dinner. Rick and Shane stood off to the side with Daryl nearby, cleaning dried blood from his arrows. Anna shoved her hands in her pockets as she walked, her pace slow as she relished the opportunity to get out of the RV and clear her head. Every little sound seemed to make her jump, wearing on her already frazzled nerves. She felt like she was walking a tightrope and any tiny misstep could send her spiraling to the ground.

The early evening sun warmed her at least and she was thankful even for the sticky summer air that caused her t-shirt to cling to her damp skin. Rogue strands of her dark hair that broke free from the braid over her shoulder stuck to her neck, though she didn't have the will to care. It was odd to think that only twenty-four hours before they had been gearing up for a fish fry, little else on their minds other than how happy they all were to have something besides squirrel to eat. She had laughed as she cleaned fish next to Carl and Sophia, the former marveling at how cool he thought it was and the latter doing her best to not let him see how squeamish it was making her. Anna's breath hitched as she remembered that it was Amy's birthday. Her heart broke all over again and she wrapped her arms around herself as she turned to look back at Andrea.

The blood seemed to freeze in her veins at the sight before her. Amy's hand was fisted in Andrea's hair, her face just out of reach of her sister's. Andrea was holding her at a safe distance, murmuring words Anna couldn't hear as Amy's mouth opened and closed slowly. Anna could do nothing but watch wordlessly, rooted to the spot as Andrea lifter her gun with her free hand, rested the barrel behind Amy's ear and squeezed the trigger.

She fell to the ground in a heap and Anna's heart did the same. Whatever duct tape and thread had been holding her together frayed and snapped, letting loose all the things she had been trying so desperately to hold inside. Her vision swam as she fought to blink back the tears long enough for her to get to some place where she wouldn't be seen.

She spun on her heel to make for her tent and collided straight into something solid. She could feel the water leak from her eyes as she stumbled back a step, two hands firmly gripping her upper arms to keep her from toppling over entirely. Her gaze shifted upward and she blinked up at Daryl who was barely visible through the tears that clouded her vision. He regarded her with an odd look, something caught halfway between concern and softness but unlike anything she had ever seen from him before. Fire burned in her cheeks and she tore free from his grasp to make a beeline for her tent. She yanked the flaps closed with a little more force than was necessary, not even making it to her cot before the tears started to flow freely.

Anna hugged her knees to her chest tightly as she sobbed, every ounce of pain and anger and regret turning to liquid and running down her cheeks. She sobbed for Amy, for Andrea, for Jim and Mr. Bickling and all the others they'd lost. But most of all she cried for Alex, the way she hadn't let herself do until then. For the first time since she'd left that camp outside of Atlanta, Anna let herself truly feel what it meant to lose her sister. She thought back to late night walks home down questionable city streets, laughing over something ridiculous with boxes of cheap Chinese takeout in their hands. She thought of graduations, of burnt popcorn during horror movie binges and a Christmas cactus when neither of them wanted to decorate a tree. She thought of her sister's arms wrapped around her at their mother's funeral – and then their dad's – while they both cried. She thought of the flickering hospital lights, of Baker at her feet, of the smell of rotting flesh. She thought of Clint, of the chaos at camp that night, and she swore she could hear Alex's voice as clear as if she were sitting right next to her. _Go. Run. I'll be right behind._

Anna rested her cheek against her folded arms, her swollen eyes red and wet. The guilt poured over her as it had been longing to do, violent waves crashing around her and threatening to drag her below. There was a soft tapping on the flap of her tent.

"Anna?" Lori's voice floated through as she pulled the zipper down and crawled inside. "Daryl told me you were in here."

Anna wiped her nose roughly on her arm, willing herself to regain her composure. Lori scooted beside her and wrapped her arms around her tightly. She offered no sympathy, no words or encouragement, and for that Anna was grateful. Words were empty, hollow things. Action had always spoken louder to her than any words could and she was thankful just to have her friend there, something solid to hold onto when she felt like she was drowning.

How long they sat like that, Anna couldn't say. It felt like a lifetime passed before Lori finally spoke, her voice soft as she brushed Anna's hair back from her forehead for her.

"Dinner should be ready. You want to head out there and see what variation of squirrel we're having tonight?"

The corner of Anna's mouth reached upward just a hair and she nodded, taking Lori's hand as they stood. Lori kept her fingers locked tightly around Anna's as they made their way toward the fire, leaving the tent and a sea of heartache behind them.

* * *

Nighttime found Anna tossing and turning on her cot, much the same way she had during her first night at camp when she was weighing the decision to go or stay. She was exhausted but couldn't will herself to sleep, her restless mind racing a mile a minute without an end in sight. Visions from the night before played out behind her closed eyelids. She had her pillow pressed firmly over her ears in an effort to block out the sounds of Andrea's muffled sleep talking from the next tent over, her dreams seemingly plagued by Amy.

They had buried her that evening after dinner, as Anna knew they would, along with their other fallen campers. Shane had announced the official decision to leave for the CDC shortly after, citing the importance of sticking together and stating that they would head out the following morning. It was a fool's errand in Anna's opinion, though she wouldn't voice the thought aloud. She had little hope that the CDC would be operational and even if it was, she doubted they had anything even remotely resembling a cure. Still, she favored that option over Fort Benning. She was certain she'd had her fill of military encounters to last her more than a lifetime.

Admittedly, she wasn't even confident Jim would survive the trek. His fever was climbing ever higher and his hallucinations had gotten worse; now he was delusional more often than not. She was grateful that Carol had offered to stay with him overnight. Anna was no stranger to seeing patients in pain but she hated the feeling of watching her friend suffer and being virtually helpless to stop it.

A soft sob came from Andrea's tent and Anna sighed as she realized she likely wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. As she swung her legs over the side of her cot and shrugged on a worn grey sweatshirt Glenn had picked up on one of his many runs into the city, she decided that was probably for the best; her dreams weren't likely to allow her much rest anyway.

The night air was cool on her skin, the gentle breeze a reminder that summer would soon be fading away into fall. The sky was clear with a handful of stars twinkling against their dark backdrop as the moon shone brightly from where it hung, nearly full. Anna padded over to the dead fire and the dirt shifted under her bare feet like sand. If she closed her eyes it almost felt as if she was at the beach, though the sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore was replaced by the soft rustling of the wind through the trees. She was surprised to find that she seemed to be the only one awake. Usually Shane or Dale were up well into the night for one reason or another, though she couldn't blame them for getting their rest in when they could; after the last twenty-four hours, they were all exhausted.

"Hey."

The voice was quiet, hardly a whisper on the breeze as he called over to her, but it still made Anna nearly jump out of her skin. She spun around to try and find the source of the voice but saw nothing until her gaze rose to the top of the RV.

"Jesus Christ," she hissed up at Daryl as she wrapped her arms around herself, partly to ward off the chill and partly to settle her nerves. "You scared the shit out of me."

"You taking a midnight stroll or something?" He called down to her. His legs dangled over the edge of the RV's roof as he leaned against the railing, his crossbow lying beside him and a rifle propped against the camper's chair behind him. She could see the faint glow of a lit cigarette between his fingers.

"Or something. I couldn't sleep," she blinked up at him for a moment before adding, "You care if I come up?"

Daryl shrugged. "If you want."

Anna knew that was as good an invitation as she could hope to get from him. She closed the gap between herself and the RV and made her way up the ladder as quietly as she could so as not to disturb Jim and Carol inside. Daryl didn't bother to look over at her when she took a seat beside him.

"You have another?"

Daryl quirked an eyebrow at her as he regarded her from the corner of his eye. A heartbeat passed before he held the cigarette out to her. "Didn't know you smoked."

"I don't," Anna insisted, taking a long drag before handing it back to him.

"Ain't good for you. Figured a doctor would know that."

She rolled her eyes. "Doctors and nurses are the worst hypocrites when it comes to health. Half the staff at the hospital I worked at spent their nights getting piss drunk, especially if they worked in the ED. I couldn't tell you how many conversations I heard between the nursing students about their rousing weekends spent dropping molly and making questionable decisions."

He scoffed as he passed her the cigarette again. "That your kinda scene?"

"Not even close," she protested. "My social life was pretty much at a standstill before all this happened. I worked, went home, sometimes hung out at the bar where my sister worked but that's about it."

Daryl nodded and they fell into a comfortable silence after that, each of them alternating puffs on the cigarette as they listened to the chorus a series of crickets and katydids sang for anyone awake to hear. Anna swung her legs back and forth as her nerves finally calmed.

"Probably a good thing you came up here," Daryl said finally, his gaze still fixed somewhere out in front of him. "The way you were acting earlier, seemed like you could use a smoke."

Anna frowned. She had almost forgotten that she'd run into Daryl earlier that day as she teetered on the edge of a breakdown. For a moment she considered telling him everything – how she felt about losing her sister and the series of events that led up to it – but that was a foolish thought, nothing more than the day's vulnerability clouding her head.

"Yeah," she said simply instead. "I did."

She took the final puff off the cigarette and snuffed it out against the roof. A heartbeat passed before Anna turned to regard him, pressing her cheek against the railing as she turned the butt over in her fingers. "Where'd you get this from anyway?"

Something tugged at the edge of his lips and Anna almost thought she was going to see a smile out of him. "Found it in Merle's stuff. Last one and it ain't my first pick but it's better than nothing."

She couldn't argue with that. Anna never thought she would say she was grateful to Merle Dixon for anything but damn if she wasn't glad he had that cigarette. She felt like she should respond but couldn't bring herself to actually do it. She opted instead to let her eyes flutter closed as she listened to the soft sounds around her. The nicotine calmed her just enough to make her almost forget why she'd left her tent in the first place.

When she opened her eyes again she saw Daryl leaning against the railing, his chin resting on one of his folded arms. He had dropped his usual scowl and wore a neutral expression instead, something that made him look almost soft in the pale glow of the moon. The breeze tugged a strand of hair free to blow across his forehead and Anna's fingers itched to brush it back, though whether that was from the odd serenity of the moment or something more, she had no desire to find out.

"If you don't mind me asking," she said, in part as a selfish ploy to distract herself. "What happened in Atlanta?"

She half expected some biting retort but Daryl shrugged instead. "We went to the department store. Door was chained shut like T-Dog said but Merle was gone, cut his damn hand off to get out of the cuffs. We followed his trail back down the other side of the roof, found some old Sterno cans and an iron steak weight he used to cauterize the stump. Looked like he headed down the fire escape and we lost the trail after that."

Anna blinked at him for a moment in mild surprise. "So, okay, let me make sure I have this straight. Your brother cut off his own hand and then cauterized the wound _by himself_ with a _steak weight_?"

"Yeah well, Merle's a crazy bastard."

"And cocaine's a hell of a drug," she added. "Still that's badass, though a little unnecessary."

Daryl finally turned to look at her, one of his eyebrows raised in question.

"I'm just saying, he didn't have to cut off the whole hand. He could've just broken his wrist or cut off the thumb – or well, actually, probably just dislocated the thumb depending on the type of cuffs and how tight they were. Either way, he could've saved himself a hell of a lot of pain."

Daryl stared at her as she rambled and for a moment Anna worried that she'd said something to set him off yet again, but instead the corners of his mouth turned upward a fraction and a noise escaped him. It wasn't a laugh per se but it was the closest thing to it that Anna had ever heard come out of his mouth.

"Like I said," he repeated. "Crazy bastard."

Anna was certain that truer words had never been spoken. Merle reminded her a bit of one of the guys who used to frequent the strip club Alex worked at back in Atlanta. He was a rough-and-tough burly type, definitely a little sharp at the edges with a crass sense of humor, but Alex always got a kick out of him. She'd had to throw him out more than once for getting too handsy with the dancers but he was always back within a few days with a smile on his face and a brand new story about something insane that happened to him that would leave her sister in stitches.

"Alex would've gotten a kick out of that," Anna mused, more to herself than to Daryl. She eyed the cigarette butt in her hand for a moment before letting it fall to the ground. "You think he's still out there?"

"Hell yeah I do," Daryl insisted as he rose to his feet. "Ain't nobody out there that can kill Merle but Merle."

Anna laughed for the first time in what felt like ages and she could see the upturn in Daryl's mouth too as he retreated to the old camper's chair. She let her eyes fall closed again as the breeze rustled through her hair and sleep finally came to claim her.

* * *

The following morning came and went without much incident. Daryl had nudged Anna awake less-than-gently with the toe of his boot just after sunrise and when she looked down, she saw that nearly everyone was already awake and working to pack up their little camp. By mid-morning there was hardly any evidence left that their group had been there at all, save for the remains of the fire and a note taped to the gutted Dodge that Rick had left for a man and his son who were supposedly going to follow him to Atlanta. Morales and Miranda decided not to accompany them to the CDC, opting instead to try and find their remaining family in Birmingham. It reminded Anna of a time not so long ago when she too was bound for Alabama with her sister at her side. The thought prodded at a tender place on her heart that wouldn't seem to go away and she had to make a conscious effort not to think on it. Just as she was convinced that nothing good could be found in Alabama, she tried to remind herself that nothing good could come from dwelling on the past.

She spent the ride to the CDC in the back of the RV with Jacqui and Jim, whose condition was steadily worsening. He was barely lucid anymore for longer than a few minutes and when he was, each one of the RV's movements seemed to be another devastating blow. He groaned and winced with every bump as though his bones were splintering beneath his skin. The cramps that wracked his body were so severe that she could actually see the muscles contracting and, through it all, there was virtually nothing she could do to help him. Jacqui spent her time dabbing at his forehead with a damp rag and whispering soothing words to her friend. Anna wasn't sure which of them benefitted from it more.

The RV came to a sudden stop, lurching forward with a hiss that sounded as though steam was pouring from somewhere beneath the hood. Jim let out a pained cry as all three of them were jostled by the stop and Anna found herself wishing that his lucidity would leave him altogether; at least then, he wouldn't have to feel the pain. Jacqui offered to see what was going on and as she stepped through the doorway to the front of the RV, Anna checked her watch and realized it was time to take Jim's temperature again. It was rising at such an alarming rate that Anna was certain it would overtake him before the CDC was even a silhouette on the horizon. She'd taken to checking it every half hour, though each time she was met with a similarly disheartening result.

"It's that damn radiator hose," Jim hissed through gritted teeth as Anna wiped the thermometer tip with an alcohol swab. "Told them we needed the one from the cube van."

Anna motioned for him to open his mouth and he complied, allowing her to slide the thermometer under his tongue. She flipped his wrist over as gently as she could and pressed two fingers against the pulse point, her eyes fixed on the second hand of her watch as she counted the faint but rapid beats. When the thermometer beeped, she withdrew it carefully and checked the result, unsurprised by what she saw.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt," Rick's voice came from the doorway and when Anna turned, she saw him leaning against the doorframe. "Can I pull you away for a minute?"

Anna turned back to Jim and he gave her a tiny nod of affirmation. She turned and followed Rick into the hallway where he spoke to her in a low voice.

"How's he doing?"

"Worse," she admitted. "His pulse is fast and weak, his temp is 106.2-"

"106?" Rick repeated, incredulous. "I thought 103 was bad."

"It is. He's half a degree away from hyperpyrexia. I was hoping to hold it off for as long as possible but his fever is climbing so fast that I can hardly keep up with it. Once he gets to that point…"

 _The end won't be far behind,_ she wanted to say. Rick seemed to catch her meaning and nodded solemnly.

"Can I talk to him for a minute?"

Anna shrugged. "You can try. He was lucid when we walked out here but that doesn't mean he still is."

Rick nodded to her in understanding and turned to head back into the bedroom, leaving Anna to make her way to the front of the RV. Everyone else seemed to have left their vehicles and congregated outside, with Dale and Glenn working on the busted radiator hose while the others milled about. There was a large, shady oak tree just off the side of the road and she could see what looked to be an old gas station further off in the distance. T-Dog and Shane had already hopped in the church van and were setting a course for the building, hoping to find a replacement radiator hose.

Aside from a few brief exchanges between Glenn and Dale beneath the RV's hood, no one uttered a word. The thick, humid air coupled with the looming weight of Jim's condition was a heavy burden on all of their shoulders, almost going so far as to physically weigh them down. Anna had treated thousands of patients and had lost her fair share but none of them had ever weighed on her the way Jim did. Maybe it was because he was her friend or because he was suffering and she couldn't do anything – or maybe both – but Anna found herself growing ever more discouraged with each moment that passed. It was as though the reaper was peering over her shoulder, counting the beats of Jim's heart in sync with her. Her actions felt empty and ineffective – which they were, she knew – but she still felt that she needed to try. Grim as the situation may have been, it wasn't in Anna's nature to sit idly by while a man died, regardless of whether or not he was her friend.

The RV door swung open and every set of eyes snapped to Rick as he descended the stairs to join them. He looked weary, as though he'd aged years in the brief span of time he'd spent with Jim.

"He wants to stay here," Rick declared, though it was evident he wasn't thrilled to do so.

"Yeah well," Dale mumbled as he peered around the side of the hood. "If we don't get this radiator hose fixed, I don't think we'll have much of a choice."

Rick shook his head. "No, he wants to stay here… by himself. He wants us to leave him here."

"To die?" Lori repeated, her eyes wide. Rick didn't have a chance to respond before Carol spoke.

"And he's lucid?"

"Seems to be, as far as I can tell."

"You'd know if he wasn't," Anna assured him.

Carol opened her mouth to speak again but this time Rick cut her off. "It's what he wants."

"You know," Dale said as he moved from his place beneath the hood to join the rest of the group. "Back at camp when I said Daryl might be right and you shut me down, you misunderstood. I could never agree with callously killing a man; I was just going to suggest we ask Jim what he wants." His eyes moved across each of their faces before coming back to rest on Rick again. "It seems like we have an answer."

The silence returned in full force, the reality of Jim's decision a heavy burden on all of their shoulders. It wasn't long before Shane and T-Dog returned with a makeshift radiator hose, not a perfect fit but one that Dale deemed to be good enough to get them to the CDC at least. He made quick work of replacing the busted hose while Rick relayed Jim's wishes to Shane before the two of them helped the sick man from the RV. Relocating Jim was a slow and painful process, though the shady oak tree they sat him under seemed as good a resting place as any.

Through it all, Anna couldn't ignore the bitter guilt that ate away at her from inside her chest. From a logical standpoint, she knew there was nothing she could have done to save Jim. Still, it was nearly impossible to hush the nagging voice at the back of her mind that kept whispering that she could have done more.

The rest of the group said their goodbyes and it wasn't long before Anna found herself crouched down in front of the dying man, trying to find the words to say. In the end, Jim beat her to it.

"It's okay," he assured her, the corners of his mouth lifting in a weak smile. "The CDC was a nice thought but I think we all knew I wasn't gonna be making it there. I'm going to be with my family. It'll be okay."

Anna managed a small smile in return and gave his hand a gentle squeeze before turning and making her way back toward the RV. At the back of her mind, she wondered who Jim was really trying to convince.

She was only a few paces away from the RV's door when a voice called out to her from the next car over, the familiar southern drawl now unmistakable.

"Hey Doc!" When she turned to face him, Shane's dark brown eyes seemed to bore right through her even from a hundred feet away. "Why don't you ride with me?"

Anna blinked at him for a moment before making her way over to the jet black Jeep. Her fingers closed around the grab bar and she swung herself into the passenger seat wordlessly. Shane cranked the engine and led the group back onto the road. He waited until Jim was hardly more than a shapeless blur in the distance before he spoke again.

"I think it's time we had ourselves a little chat, don't you?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Guys! We're so close to the CDC! I'm so excited, I honestly can't even explain. But before we get there - What does Shane want to talk to Anna about? Let me know if you have any thoughts! I love to hear your theories and predictions for what's to come.

As always, a huge thank you to my wonderful beta-adjacent **BouncingKappa** who continuously hounded me (rightfully) when I literally only had a handful of paragraphs left for this chapter that I couldn't bring myself to write. Sometimes I need a swift kick in the ass, you know? And of course a huge thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed and favorited! It truly does bring me an immeasurable amount of joy to get those notification emails.


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